It was a sad day in 2013 when the THQ flag was lowered for the last time . Not that we didn't see it coming, but there was a time when THQ was a solid mid-tier publisher with some well-regarded studios under its banner, and while those glory days can never be brought back, the THQ name can.
Nordic Games General Manager Klemens Kruezer told Polygon that the company has completed a deal to acquire the trademark, and if you're now wondering who Nordic Games is, well, that's kind of the point.
"It was kind of a surprise to some industry veterans and players that we were the winner of the auction of the THQ titles. The challenging fact is nobody has ever heard about Nordic Games before [the auction]. There were so many articles with the headlines 'Who the fuck is Nordic Games?' We said, okay, they were right," Kruezer said. ""We have seen an uplift in the name of Nordic Games, and what we have also done is we have made a second deal with THQ where we bought the THQ trademark."
Nordic Games is actually an Austrian publisher with a catalog built largely out of acquisitions from THQ, JoWooD and DreamCatcher. It picked up the rights to the Darksiders and Red Faction franchises last year, and also holds Painkiller, Titan Quest, Panzer Elite, SpellForce and various others. It's perhaps not the most world-beating array of titles ever assembled, but Nordic is working on it: Kruezer said the company needs fans to be patient because it wants to do a proper job of bringing back old THQ games like Darksiders.
"We want to be able to do it right," he said. "The owner of Nordic Games has given [interviews] where he has said that he doesn't want to make a shitty sequel."
Kruezer said more information about Nordic's plans for the future will be revealed in August at the Gamescom convention in Germany.
