Deep Silver

Lore & Background

Deep Silver was announced in November 2002, with its first release to be Anarchy Online: The Notum Wars. According to Craig McNichol, who ran Koch Media's England branch, the idea behind Deep Silver was to have a business segment that would develop games that would complement the games Koch Media was distributing on behalf of other publishers. McNichol also stated that Deep Silver's name was subject to much internal discussion. Koch Media invested in Deep Silver in July 2003, and in November 2003, all of Koch Media's game publishing operations (excluding distribution) were reallocated to Deep Silver.

The division had been continuously active since, primarily in Europe. In April 2008, Koch Media opened Deep Silver, Inc., a subsidiary branch based in Los Angeles, under Deep Silver's name. In August 2007, Games That Matter, a studio founded by former Rockstar Vienna employees in 2006, was acquired by Koch Media and became part of Deep Silver under the name Deep Silver Vienna. Co-founders Niki Laber and Hannes Seifert had left the studio by January 2010, at which point Deep Silver Vienna was shut down.

Deep Silver Vienna has only produced one game, Cursed Mountain, which was developed in association with Sproing Interactive and released in August 2009 for the Wii. Deep Silver first gained widespread attention with its release of Dead Island and its acquisition of Volition. Dead Island had been their first release to reach the top spot on sales charts in September 2011, and they acquired Volition in January 2013, alongside the rights to the Metro series, from the bankruptcy proceedings of THQ.

Deep Silver also acquired a minority interest in Berlin-based free-to-play game developer Infernum Productions in December 2012. In February 2013, Deep Silver announced its intentions to expand into the mobile games market. In December 2013, Fishlabs, which had filed for self-administration the previous October, was acquired by Koch Media and became Deep Silver's dedicated mobile game studio. As the agreement was an asset deal, the legal entity of the studio was dissolved and Fishlabs was reorganised as a division, officially known as Deep Silver Fishlabs.

In July 2014, Deep Silver acquired the rights to Homefront and its in-development sequel, Homefront: The Revolution, from German developer Crytek.

Reader's Guide

Deep Silver acquired Volition in January 2013 from the bankruptcy proceedings of THQ. The studio (Volition) changed ownership to Deep Silver; the publisher (Deep Silver) did not change hands. In November 2022, Volition was transferred to Gearbox Entertainment, another company under Embracer Group.

Did You Know?

• Deep Silver acquired Volition and the rights to the Metro series from THQ's bankruptcy in January 2013.
• The Zombie Bait Edition of Dead Island: Riptide included a statuette of a mutilated female torso and generated backlash.