Developer purchases by publishers are always interesting. When the publisher is a public company the news is almost immediate and often tips the hand of the company doing the purchasing. Of course, that’s if the company hasn’t made it perfectly clear, already and that’s exactly what Perfect World International has done. It is looking to expand into the Western market aggressively.
The parent company of Perfect World Entertainment, the US arm in charge of Forsaken World, Star Trek Online and Neverwinter, the latter two being developed by wholly-owned developer Cryptic Studios, has returned to the US market grabbing the maker behind the third-person F2P shooter Warframe. Although unconfirmed by either branch, the purchase of Digital Extremes will give Perfect World another genre that’s key to the domestic market; shooters.
Warframe was not highly rated at open beta launch, yet boasts over a dozen updates since the early release, including new features, quality of life fixes and hotfixes. It’s been in this state on Windows over a year and PlayStation 4 since the console’s release window. Perhaps the direction of an experienced MMOG publisher will enable Digital Extremes to fully launch the co-op friendly shooter.
Warframe is not nearly the first release for Digital Extremes. Perfect World picked up the developer of Dark Sector, The Darkness II and a support house on the BioShock and Unreal Tournament franchises. Quite a shooter pedigree.