Nexon becomes majority investor in Patrick Söderlund’s Embark Studios

Nexon announced today that it has increased its investment in Embark Studios, becoming the new majority share holder of the company.

Nexon is a South Korea-based company traded publicly on the Tokyo Stock Exchange that focuses on PC multiplayer games like Tera and mobile titles like the strategy-based DomiNations. Embark is based in Stockholm, Sweden. The young studio started in 2018 and is working on its first (and undetailed) multiplayer project.

Embark’s founder, Patrick Söderlund, joined the Nexon board of directors after Nexon made its initial investment in Embark in November 2018. Söderlund was previously an executive at Battlefield developer DICE and Electronic Arts. Now Nexon owns 66.1% of Embark’s shares as it hopes to use the studio to expand its influence in Western markets.

“Embark has been making incredible progress on its projects in a short period of time, and since joining the board, Patrick Söderlund has been essential in helping drive our vision forward, so it only made sense to bring the companies even closer together,” said Owen Mahoney, president and CEO of Nexon, in a press release sent to GamesBeat. “Bringing Embark into the Nexon family will be integral to our Western growth strategy, accelerate our ability to share expertise across studios and maximize our expertise of live game operations to create deeply engaging online worlds.

Rumors earlier this year suggested that Nexon was looking to sell, but company founder Kim Jung-ju has recently called off the attempt.