Daedalic Entertainment opens new Munich office
Bavarian branch is publisher's third in Germany, former Klonk Games team hired to work on new title from Deponia creator
European publisher and developer Daedalic Entertainment has opened a brand new office in Germany, GamesIndustry.biz can reveal.
The studio is based in Munich, Bavaria and officially starts operating on March 1st. While it will contribute to the publisher's ongoing operations, the team's first project will be developing a new game.
There will be an eight-man team based in the Munich studio, all of whom previously worked at Shift Happens developer Klonk Games. However, GamesIndustry.biz has been told this is not an acquisition of Klonk; instead, Daedalic has hired the entire team and formed a new company - Daedalic Entertainment Bavaria. Klonk will continue to exist while it completes current contracts with its partners, after which it will be shut down.
The team will be developing a brand new property under the guidance of Daedalic co-founder Jan 'Poki' Müller-Michaelis, best known for the firm's popular Deponia series.
Daedalic has named Oliver Machek as studio head and creative director for the branch, while the publisher's COO Stephan Harms will become CEO of Daedalic Entertainment Bavaria.
While no figure is mentioned, the publisher claims it has made a "massive investment" in the new studio. This is Daedalic's third office within its home market of Germany, alongside studios in Hamburg and Dusseldorf.
"The main aspect for us was finding the right team for Poki to work on his new game," said Harms. "We haven't been able to allocate the resources needed in one of the existing offices, due to other projects in the making. We knew Klonk Games had a very talented team, we talked about it and found an agreement quickly."