EA buys Respawn Entertainment for $400 million completing the circle for one of the founding members

As reported by Kotaku yesterday, Respawn Entertainment is being snatched up by EA for a reported $400 million. That seems like a lot of money for a company that had an OK first title and a great, but very low selling second title. 

EA has Respawn working on a Star Wars title and the unannounced Titanfall 3 for now. The documents say that bonuses will be handed out depending on the Metacritic scores of the Star Wars and next Titanfall game, so they better hope they don't Fallout New Vegas it.

They outbid Nexon to acquire the studio who's founding member, Vince Zampella, was originally at EA many, many years as part of the team that did the Medal of Honor series. He left EA to form Infinity Ward with Jason West and help create the Call of Duty series that killed Medal of Honor. Activision bought Infinity Ward, and later he left to form Respawn Entertainment to work on the Titanfall series, which didn't kill any other game though. And now he's sold a studio to the publisher that he started with in the first place. I wouldn't be surprised if Vince leaves to form a new studio that Activision is interested in to restart a new cycle.

You can read Vince talk about he acquisition and why joining EA made a lot of sense. Besides, of course, EA bidding the most money.

This comes hot on the heels of EA killing Visceral Studios, which I'm sure sits really well with those folks now.