Studio behind Gears 5, Halo multiplayer titles goes private as Tencent offloads chunk of UK gaming portfolio

UK-based game studio Splash Damage,  known for games like Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory, the underrated title Brink, and the online implementation of Gears 5 and Gears Tactics, has severed ties with parent company Tencent.

The announcement, made on September 26, 2025, and reported by GamesIndustry.biz, states that the company has been acquired by an undisclosed group of private equity investors. Splash Damage offered scant details and stated, “We will continue to operate under our current leadership team, but will not be providing further comment at this time.”

Splash Damage was founded in 2001 by a trio of modders, Paul Wedgwood, Richard Jolly, and Arnout van Meer, from the Team Fortress and Quake 3 communities. The London studio grew to hire over 400 people and built a legacy spanning 25 years with credits in games like Batman: Arkham Origins’ multiplayer, Gears of War: Ultimate Edition, Halo: The Master Chief Collection’s PC port, Dirty Bomb, Outcasters, and Star Wars: Hunters.

The studio and its sister companies, Warchest and Fireteam, were acquired by Chinese holding firm Leyou Technologies via its Radius Maxima subsidiary in July 2016. The holding company was later acquired by Tencent in December 2020 for a staggering $1.5 billion, folding Splash Damage and several game studios. Radius Maxima was later rebranded as Splash Damage Group in February 2021. 

Now, five years later, Tencent has offloaded Splash Damage to private equity backers in a deal that’s under wraps. Tencent has been pruning a chunk of its non-core assets to streamline its operations recently.

Splash Damage was previously working on a free-to-play action game called Transformers: Reactivate. Unfortunately, the project was cancelled in early 2025, followed by layoffs at the studio.

It’s rumored that the project was canceled due to Hasbro’s directives, which may have factored into the Tencent split. However, no public link has been proven, and Splash Damage has remained quiet on the whole situation.

Still, things look steady for Splash Damage ahead as the studio is currently working on an open-world survival shooter dubbed Project Astrid, which is being developed in collaboration with Twitch stars like Mike “Shroud” Grzesiek and Chris “Sacriel” Ball. The project was teased back in 2023 and is still in active development.