10tacle takes a stake in Climax

German games development firm 10tacle has announed it will acquire some 29 per cent of Climax Studios as part of a "strategic partnership" to develop new games – and has admitted it seriously auditing" the possibility of integrating the UK independent into its business further.

Together, Climax and 10tacle will be working on two action and fantasy titles and then also work on a new online world commissioned by MTV Europe.

The partnership means the two will also look to expand their studios further and combined the two would have a large workforce.

Climax manages two studios – one in Portsmouth and a handheld team in London – and has around 200 employees. 10tacle, meanwhile, has around 400 employees at different studios across Europe, including London-based racing team Blimey Games and GTR-maker Simbin.

"The agreed cooperation of our companies will form one of the biggest independent development-partnership worldwide for next-gen, PC, video- and online-entertainment," said Michele Pes, CEO of 10tacle.

"Climax has many years’ development experience and proven technology that it has built up over many years of successful game development. Climax is a developer for several prominent games publishers. The two companies complement each other perfectly on the development and production side. We are very glad that we have found such an experienced partner to strengthen our development capacities and we are currently seriously auditing further possibilities to integrate Climax into our organisation."

Karl Jeffrey, Climax group CEO, added: "We believe that 10tacle Studios is the ideal strategic partner for Climax. Together, we are perfectly positioned to deliver international next-gen projects of the highest quality and to pioneer the development of advanced online gaming worlds and social networks."