Games/Interactive
Keywords Acquires Climax Studios, Enhancing Game Development Offering
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Keywords Studios announced the acquisition of Climax Studios, a UK-based provider of game development services. The acquisition furthers Keywords’ strategy to become the ‘go-to’ technical and creative services platform for the global video games industry and will bring significant additional scale to Keywords Studios’ largest service line, Game Development.
Founded in 1988 and based in Portsmouth, Climax is one of the longest established game development businesses in the UK.
Led by CEO Simon Gardner, the studio’s talented team of 109 staff provides full game development, co-development, porting and technical consulting services to some of the world’s largest games publishers including Sony, Microsoft, 2K, Codemasters and Electronic Arts.
Jon Hauck, Joint Interim CEO of Keywords Studios, commented: “We are delighted that Simon and the highly talented Climax team are joining the Keywords family.
“Climax brings a wealth of expertise, adds significant scale to our rapidly growing Game Development service line and provides access to a new pool of talent from its base in Portsmouth.
“The studio’s excellent track record of high quality delivery spans more than 30 years, with its services in high demand from some of the largest names in the industry. We are very excited about the experience and opportunities that Climax will bring to Keywords, and our clients, and we look forward to enabling their continued growth as part of the Group.”
Climax has worked on original games and co-development projects across all genres and platforms, including on recent titles Silent Hill: Shattered Memories, Crackdown 3 and Returnal PS5.
Whilst it has produced award winning games on all platforms and genres during its long history, it has most recently focused on co-development and technical code support for leading games publishers around the world.
Simon Gardner (Climax CEO) said of the announcement: “We are very excited about joining Keywords and the opportunities that being part of an industry leading global business will open up to our clients and our team.
“Keywords Studios shares our growth ambitions and their investment will support the delivery of a wider range of top quality services and products to our clients.
“We are looking forward to working closely with everyone at Keywords and to start playing our part in the impressive journey of the wider business.”
