Developer and publisher Dotemu has been acquired by another developer and publisher in the form of Focus Home Interactive. The latter has acquired 77.5 percent of share capital in the former for €38.5 million (~R656 million) according to an investor statement (PDF).

Dotemu has made a name for itself in recent years with Streets of Rage 4 and a slew of classic game re-releases from series like Metal Slug, Windjammers and Final Fantasy.

In the future the company has some big games on the horizon including Metal Slug Tactics, Pharaoh: A New Era and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge.

“Dotemu is a French video game company specializing in modern releases of beloved retro games,” reads the developer page for the company on Steam.

Focus Home Interactive, also a French company, has worked on a wide berth of games and isn’t as easily pinned down as Dotemu is with its focus on older titles. This year alone Focus Home Interactive has published Necromunda: Hired Gun, SnowRunner, Curse of the Dead Gods and more.

Later this month it’s even releasing Aliens: Fireteam Elite, the latest game in the troubled Aliens franchise.

So what do the pair plan to do?

“In addition, with this deal, Focus Home Interactive is building up its technical capabilities for the development of independent games. Dotemu’s teams will thus be able to provide even more ambition to the young independent publishing label The Arcade Crew. After successful productions such as The Last Spell or Dark Devotion, The Arcade Crew is preparing many other ambitious productions such as Young Souls and other quality titles to be announced in the months ahead,” reads a press release sent to us.

For those worried that Dotemu will change course under its new owner, the press release seems to indicate that things will continue as is with Focus Home Interactive set to bring “expertise in the field of AA games” that will bolster what Dotemu has been doing these past years.

“While retaining the editorial and strategic independence that has made it so successful, Dotemu will be able to give even greater ambition to its projects and give itself the means to broaden the range of services offered to studios,” writes CEO of Dotemu, Cyrille Imbert.

As always with acquisitions like this only time will tell if both parties will prosper. We’re really looking forward to Metal Slug Tactics, the first true new game from the franchise that isn’t a skinner box mobile game propping up the corpse of the arcade classic to make money.