Prison management sim Prison Architect, which has been constantly updated and popular since it was released on Steam Early Access in 2015, has been acquired by Paradox Interactive for an undisclosed sum.
As Prison Architect has been acquired by Paradox, original creators Introversion are moving on to other things, and the game will continue to be developed by Paradox. Furthermore, they plan to continue the Architect series to new management game ideas.
Paradox made the announcement via press release. The publisher behind Cities Skylines and Surviving Mars believe that Prison Architect is "a good fit" for their catalogue, and plan on expanding the Architect IP to other non-institutional games. Ebba Ljungerud, CEO of Paradox Interactive, said, "I believe the considerable player base of Prison Architect will be excited to see where we can take the game next, and we’re eager to explore development of potential new games based off of the ‘Architect’ IP. We promise to exercise good behavior with this cherished title going forward."
Please give a warm welcome to Prison Architect which is now joining the Paradox library of games! We're very excited for the future of this game.
— Paradox Interactive (@PdxInteractive) January 8, 2019
Tomorrow at 5pm CEST we will be holding a small Q&A on Facebook+Twitter to answer any questions you might have. See you there! pic.twitter.com/FZ1wUzDX2c
Introversion seem equally happy with the deal, and seem keen to move to other games - as Mark Morris, studio co-founder, says: "We’ve been building and managing this building-and-management game for nearly a decade. I think we’ve taken Prison Architect just about as far as we can, and we’re all eager to see where a team like Paradox can take it next! This also gives Introversion the chance to work on what we’ve got coming up next."
We probably won't hear much about new Architect games for a while, but it sounds like Introversion already have a new IP in the pipeline. Mark Morris just adds, "more on that soon." We don't expect Prison Architect to truly change too radically, as Paradox bought it for how popular it is now. New Architect games though, in this same style? We can't wait to see that.
