Riot Games acquires ‘World Of Tanks’ developer’s Sydney studio

Riot Games has announced it has completed its acquisition of Sydney-based Wargaming Studios and will rename the company as Riot Sydney.

Wargaming is best known for its experience in developing next-gen game development tools as well as AAA games and research and development projects. It also works on prototypes for new game features as well as console ports and add-ons.

Speaking about the acquisition, Marc Merrill, co-founder and president of games at Riot said, “We are really excited to bring these talented developers and teams to Riot,” before continuing that “the Rioters that have had the opportunity to work with members of the Sydney team are confident not only in the tech they’ve built over the years but, more importantly, in the people who’ve built it.”

Merrill said that Naresh Hirani, head of development at Riot Sydney, and the developer teams at the studio have a “long history” of working in ways that will compliment the way Riot works as a studio as well as its “ability to deliver value to our players” saying that the company is “really looking forward to collaborating with them”.

Riot Sydney will be working on League of Legends, Valorant and integrating itself with the tech teams at Riot. The studio will also contribute to Riot’s development studios organisation.

Wargaming – now Riot Sydney – is one of the biggest development studios in Australia and has worked on the likes of World of Tanks, World of Warships and more titles across consoles and PC. Wargaming will maintain ownership of Bigworld Technology (which joined the studio in 2012) for its products, whilst the development staff will join Riot Sydney. The existing publishing team will remain a part of Wargaming.

Speaking on the acquisition, Hirani said, “Being part of Wargaming has been a phenomenal journey for us over the last 10 years, and it’s helped our studio grow and thrive.” He continued, “I know I speak for the whole team when I say how excited we are to become part of Riot and help deliver amazing experiences to players.”

In other gaming news, David Grivel, the director of the forthcoming Splinter Cell remake, has left Ubisoft after 11 years with the company.