Walking Dead dev Next Games acquires Lume Games

Finnish game developer Next Games, known for the popular mobile title The Walking Dead: No Man's Land which has now seen 16 million downloads, has revealed as part of its half-year fiscal report that it's acquired Lume Games for an undisclosed amount. The acquisition took place back in February but the development team has now been integrated into Next Games, growing staff count by 24 employees to a total of 93.

Next Games said that it has three new titles in development currently, and that one of those is "an innovative mobile game that utilizes location-based and augmented reality (AR) technology." Lume's specialty has been in mixed reality, so Next Games is planning to leverage its expertise for whatever the new AR project will be.

Next Games has benefitted from the popularity of AMC's The Walking Dead television series, with the game mirroring a number of events that take place in the show in close to real-time. In the company's half-year fiscal report, it said that revenue grew 52% to 19.5m euros (up from January-June 2016 revenue of €12.8m) and that its profitability increased as well; gross margin came to 36%. Next Games is also working on a mobile game based on the upcoming Blade Runner 2049 movie.