Tencent Buys Ninjala and Samurai Jack Developer Soleil

Tencent added another studio to its growing stable of game developers. According to a report from Bloomberg, the Shenzhen-based conglomerate purchased a controlling stake in Wake Up Interactive. Wake Up is the parent company of Soleil, a Tokyo-based game developer.

Soleil developed Ninjala. It also assisted Grasshopper Manufacture with the development of Travis Strikes Again: No More Heroes, the top-down spin-off of the No More Heroes franchise. It also worked on Samurai Jack: Battle Through Time and Naruto to Boruto: Shinobi Striker. Soleil has two projects in active development at the time of the Tencent acquisition. One is a “mech combat” game called Vengeance is Mine. The other is Wanted: Dead a “hi-octane 3rd-person action game.” Both have a 2022 release window listed and are due to be published by 110 Industries.

Check out a teaser trailer for Wanted: Dead.

Also included with the Tencent acquisition of Wake Up is Valhalla Game Studio, another developer. Valhalla, however, appears to be less active. Its only titles are Devil’s Third for the Wii U and its PC-based online spin-off and Momotaro Densetsu 2017 for the 3DS.

In addition to Soleil, Tencent previously acquired Riot Games, developer of League of Legends, and Leyou, parent company of Warframe developer Digital Extremes. Tencent also owns a minority stake in Epic Games, developer of Fortnite and proprietor of the Epic Games Store.

Soleil and Tencent have not yet announced any specific projects based on the acquisition. Wanted: Dead and Vengeance is Mine are in development and due in 2022 for current platforms. Ninjala is free-to-play on the Nintendo Switch.