A couple of days ago, reports made the rounds that Rockstar Games had acquired Crackdown 2 developer Ruffian Games. The news came courtesy of documents via the UK’s registrar of companies, Companies House, which indicated that Ruffian had recently been rebranded as Rockstar Dundee. Now Rockstar itself is confirming as much, though details about the terms of the acquisition remain private.
Rockstar and its parent company Take-Two Interactive shared this development in a press release this morning. A statement from Rockstar Founder Sam Houser speaks highly of the team formally known as Ruffian Games. According to Houser, “the Ruffian team are a talented addition to Rockstar’s global studios, and we look forward to working together on future projects.”
Ruffian Co-Founder Billy Thompson seems equally pleased with the acquisition. In a statement of his own, Thompson noted that Rockstar’s investment is indicative of the “continued expansion of game development here in Scotland.”
At present, there is no word on what work-in-progress the newly rebranded studio may have up its sleeve. Last October, to the day actually, Ruffian announced that it was in the process of collaborating with Rockstar on unspecified “upcoming titles.” This suggests the team may have more than one project in development. When more concrete information will surface is anyone’s guess at this point.
Ruffian Games was first established back in 2008. By 2010, the studio rolled out its debut title–the Microsoft-published Crackdown 2. The team has since partnered with Microsoft on several other occasions, assisting in the development of many a Kinect adventure and The Master Chief Collection.
[Source: Take-Two Interactive]
