PUBG publisher has saved Tango Gameworks and Hi-Fi Rush in “strategic” acquisition

ByDavid Coulson Hours
Hi-Fi Rush Key Art

It came as a shock to many when in May 2024 Microsoft announced that Tango Gameworks, the studio behind Hi-Fi Rush, would be shut down alongside other Bethesda-owned studios including Arkane Austin and Alpha Dog Studios.

Although it didn’t see major success when it came to sales, largely due to the day-one inclusion on Xbox Game Pass, Hi-Fi Rush was critically acclaimed, scoring an impressive 90% on Metacritic.

This news also came shortly after Microsoft hit a $3 trillion market cap, and less than two months after the game saw a PS5 release, which made the decision baffling and led to a lot of criticism from the gaming community.

Hi-Fi Rush Characters
Image via Tango Gameworks

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Krafton, the South Korean publisher best known for releasing titles such as PUBG and The Callisto Protocol, has announced that they have acquired both Tango Gameworks and the rights to Hi-Fi Rush “as part of this strategic agreement,” which will see the studio continue to develop “the Hi-Fi RUSH IP and explore future projects.”

The announcement also noted that “there will be no impact on the existing game catalog of The Evil Within, The Evil Within 2, Ghostwire: Tokyo, and the original Hi-Fi RUSH game.” It is unclear whether the rights to develop new entries in The Evil Within and Ghostwire series’ were included in the deal, but Bethesda Software will retain the publishing rights of the original Hi-Fi Rush game.

Tango Gameworks was founded in 2010 by former Capcom director and producer Shinji Mikami, the mind behind the Resident Evil series, producing all of the games from the original 1996 release until 2005’s Resident Evil 4. Following Mikami’s departure from Capcom in 2006, he began working at Clover Studio, serving as the director of God Hand.

He then moved to Platinum Games to work on Vanquish before founding Tango Gameworks. Mikami left the studio in 2023 due to his “desire to create an environment for young developers to gain experience [developing video games], and to distance himself from the survivor horror genre.”

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It will be great to see what the studio has up its sleeve next when it comes to expanding the IP. Some of the employees of the studio also took to social media, including Creative Director John Johanas who took to X to post “and this is how it continues. We’re back, baby!”