NetEase Games kicks off the New Year with yet another studio acquisition. This time, it’s Canada-based SkyBox Labs that will be joining NetEase.
The developer has been a co-developer in the past years, working with various publishers including Xbox Game Studios, Wizards Of The Coast and EA. Some of the games they co-developed include Halo Infinite, Minecraft, Fallout 76 and several expansions for Age Of Empires II HD.
SkyBox Labs also made their own games independently, the latest being Stela, first released in 2019.
SkyBox Labs will continue to operate independently. All three co-founders, Shyang Kong, Derek MacNeil and Steven Silvester, remain in their leadership positions.
The acquisition will not change SkyBox Labs’ previous arrangements as co-developers, with the intent to add more co-development partners in the future.
This is quite an interesting acquisition as it’s not intended to turn SkyBox Labs into a developer of their own games. But with NetEase Games already building quite the roster of developers around the world, having their own internal co-development studio in a timezone opposite to China (-8 GMT, as opposed to +8 GMT which China observes) would definitely be useful in the long run.
NetEase Games has so far acquired Grasshopper Manufacture and Quantic Dream and has opened new studios Nagoshi Studio, Jackalope Games, Jar Of Sparks and GPTRACK50. NetEase has been releasing games mostly on mobile, but all these developers, including SkyBox Labs, are working on titles for consoles and PC.