Respawn Entertainment, which was built by Call of Duty designers Vince Zampella and Jason Ward after a falling out with Activision in 2010, has been purchased by Mega Publisher Electronic Arts for almost half a billion dollars. EA will pay $151 million upfront in cash, followed by $164 million in long-term equity in restricted stock units to employees over the next four years, and then there are additional cash considerations that will be paid out based on performance up to $140 million. So that's about $455 million altogether for the Titanfall developers.
Kotaku's Jason Schreier reports that both Titanfall 3 and the studio's Star Wars game are a part of the deal and that Respawn will earn additional bonuses based on Metacritic scores. It is also said that EA beat out the South Korean publisher Nexon for the purchase of the studio. Nexon publishes the Titanfall mobile game, so you can see why they would have a vested interest in the studio.
Despite being well received from critics, Titanfall 2 didn't do as well in the sales department as the studio had hoped, and releasing alongside Call of Duty and Battlefield 1 certainly didn't help matters. In hindsight, Respawn admitted that the release window was "super crowded" and "rough," leading to the subpar sales.
There's currently no word on when we will see or hear from Titanfall 3 or Respawn's Star Wars game, but with EA's backing, it could very well be sooner rather than later.
