Indeed, the Swedish group Enad Global 7, former owners of AntiMatter Games, had shown their desire to close the studio last May in order to reduce their annual costs. Yet, despite not having published anything under their own name in a while, the AntiMatter team sports a solid pedigree. Conductors of the Red Orchestra 2: Rising Storm expansion, they had confirmed their solid momentum through Rising Storm 2 and were working on a prequel to the cool Project IGI. Previously, AntiMatter dabbled in the Killing Floor franchise, assisting Tripwire with design and art creation.
Nothing is lost
A nice pool of talent that would have ended up in the ditch if Behavior hadn’t been there. The Canadians renamed the studio Behavior UK – South and got all the employees back. But for what purpose? “This new studio joins Behavior’s services division and will strengthen our external development capabilities. They will work on behalf of other developers and publishers“, explained the executive vice-president Wayne Meazza in the columns of PCGamesN. Luxury subcontractors for other studios, finally.
Although this significantly jeopardizes the development of IGI Origins, endorsing Behavior UK – South as an auxiliary studio, their ex-CEO Rich Barham is happy with it. “We are happy to be able to continue living from our passion, creating games, as members of the Behavior team. We feel especially fortunate to be able to remain in our beautiful city of Truro, and look forward to welcoming new colleagues in the months and years to come.“The saving of employment, that’s all that’s true.
The acquisition of AntiMatter Games and its conversion into Behavior UK – South echoes another purchase by the Canadian publisher in February 2023: the porting studio SockMonkey, promptly renamed Behavior UK – North.