Arkane Studios joins Zenimax empire

The ZeniMax studio empire has expanded once more with the firm acquiring French outfit Arkane Studios.

Pete Hines, the vice president of Zenimax publisher Bethesda Softworks, announced the move last night at the annual Quakecon event in Dallas, Texas.

Terms of the deal were not announced but it was said that that Bethesda and Arkane are now collaborating on an "unannounced project".

Arkane Studios broke onto the scene with its 2002 title Arx Fatalis and Dark Messiah games, and also collaborated on developing BioShock 2.

Yet its long-running and ambitious FPS project The Crossing failed to gain momentum in development, and was placed on hold.

In July last year Zenimax paid at least $100 million to acquire the pivotal game development studio id Software – though the full expenditure could be far higher.