Atari acquires Nightdive creator of System Shock, Doom 64 and Quake remasters

Atari will acquire Nightdive Studios. Nightdive is known for remakes and remasters of retro games such as System Shock, Blade Runner, Doom 64 and Quake. The acquisition is worth $10 million and Atari expects to close in April.

The acquisition allows Atari to use Nightdives KEX engine to remaster more retro games onto modern hardware, writes the publisher. In addition, as a publisher of retro games, Nightdive would support Atari’s retro-focused growth strategy. Atari CEO Wade Rosen was already familiar with the company; he already owned 13 percent of Nightdive stock. The founders owned the remaining 87 percent.

Atari buys the publisher for ten million dollars, partly in Atari stock. Depending on how Nightdive performs over the next three years, the former Nightdive owners could receive up to an additional $10 million. In the past fiscal year, Nightdive had revenues of approximately $3 million.

Nightdive was founded in late 2012 and over the years has released several remakes and remasters of popular games using the KEX engine. For example, a remaster of Doom 64 was released in 2020, with a completely new chapter. Nightdive partnered with Bethesda for this port. Nightdives remaster of Blade Runner was released in 2021, although this remaster was not without criticism. Since 2016, the developer has been working on a remake of the 1994 System Shock, a game that was originally supposed to be released in 2018. The release is now scheduled for May 30.

I am very proud to announce that @NightdiveStudio has joined forces with @atari to continue resurrecting the games we love ♥️🤍

— Stephen Kick 🎮 GDC (@pripyatbeast) March 23, 2023