For a few years now, Mount & Blade II developer TaleWorlds has kept a low profile, with the only nugget of news on the upcoming game being a few — admittedly nice-looking — screenshots. Well, there’s more news now, but it’s not about Mount & Blade II — it’s an announcement that the indie studio will disembark from its Paradox-shaped mothership.
The split was made public on Paradox Plaza, the official forums for the publisher/developer. The update doesn’t go into a lot of detail as to why they’ve separated, though it doesn’t feel like there’s any animosity over the decision:
As of January 31st at 00:00 (UTC -08:00) Paradox Interactive will be handing over the reins for Mount and Blade back to the developer, TaleWorlds. It’s been five and a half years since Mount and Blade was released, five and a half years of sieges, tournaments and pitched open-field battles, and of course, the odd expansion or two!
We feel honoured to have fought beside you and at our final parting of ways would bid our farewells with a gift which has automatically been added to your Steam library.
What is your gift? One of our internal studios, Paradox North, is currently hard at work on a spell-casting action PVP game by the name of Magicka: Wizard Wars. As we know that you are all fans of fast-paced tactical combat we feel that you would be equally as adept with a robe and staff as you are with sword and shield, as such our gift to you is an invitation to our Early Access alpha of Magicka: Wizard Wars.
I guess a free game is always nice, but I’d have preferred some detail on what TaleWorlds’ plans are. Hopefully we’ll hear something soon.
Mount and Blade leaving the Paradox stables, heading out on new adventures [Paradox forums, via The Escapist]
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3 responses to “Mount & Blade Developer Strikes Out On Its Own, Parts Ways With Paradox”
To be fair after Fire and Sword it would take a small miracle to fix the series.
Taleworlds is definitely up there as one of my favourite Developers, M&M Warband is still easily one of my favourite PVP titles just because the combat is just so satisfying.
Not to mention the addictive single player! I just hope they fix the renown/controversy system from WB if they haven’t already done so, because being a marshal for any decently sized kingdom meant political suicide.
If I were guessing I’d say it’s because TaleWorlds don’t need a publisher anymore.
Steam, and the 2 new consoles, allow for self publishing… so, aside from QA and marketing what do they gain from having a publisher?