Ubisoft Acquires 'Brawlhalla' Developers, Blue Mammoth Games
Ubisoft has acquired Blue Mammoth Games, indie game developer of "Brawlhalla," the most played fighting game on Steam.
"The team at Blue Mammoth Games is expert at developing and running scalable, competitive, multiplayer online games, and they'll be a great addition to Ubisoft's network of studios," wrote Laurent Detoc, president of Ubisoft NCSA in the company's press release regarding the acquisition.
"With Brawlhalla, we're getting a hugely popular and highly-profitable title that aligns with our strategy of expanding our audience and providing players with long-lasting, entertaining gaming experiences."
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Over on Blue Mammoth's side of things, they wrote in a separate announcement that their decision to partner with Ubisoft was born out of necessity. With the constant growth of their game and their playerbase, they realized that they would soon be unable to properly manage everything with only a small studio and 21 employees.
With their newfound partner, founder Matt Woomer writes that they will have more stability and resources to improve their game and add new features, some of which their players have been asking for. It will also allow the developers to better advertise their game and gain more publicity.
Woomer also writes that, despite their new AAA backer, they will not be changing how "Brawlhalla" is priced. It will continue to be free-to-play and will never have pay-to-win mechanics. Woomer assures that none of that will ever happen in their game and that Ubisoft shares that philosophy.
"Brawlhalla" is a free-to-play multiplayer fighting game that plays in a way very similar to Nintendo's "Super Smash Bros." series. Up to a maximum of four players can duke it out in an arena and, much like "Smash," players lose by being knocked out of the level instead of losing health like a typical fighter.
Despite having a somewhat low peak count compared to other fighters, it offsets this by constantly having the most concurrent players on Steam. While there will be some discrepancies such as when a new fighter releases, on an average day, "Brawlhalla" is often at the top of the list.
Blue Mammoth Games assures that this new partnership will only lead to good things. Only time will tell just how true that statement holds, especially when most indie fans tend to distrust AAA developers.
