#Hellboy and 300 Games May Be Coming from Dark Horse’s New Video Game Studio

Dark Horse Comics is getting into the video game business. The publisher has announced the launch of Dark Horse Games, a new division that will look to develop its many properties as video games. This means franchises like Hellboy and 300 could soon be coming to a console near you.

The newly-launched company has two main offices in Oregon and Shanghai. Perk Dark Horse, its mission is to “create unique experiences.” They plan to do this both through licensing partnerships as well as in-house. Dark Horse has a vast portfolio that includes over 425 characters and universes. That offers video game developers an awful lot to potentially explore. Dark Horse Comics founder and President Mike Richardson had this to say about it in a statement.
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“We’ve spent the past thirty-five years developing a long list of original, fan-favorite IP with many of the best partners in digital entertainment. Now is the perfect time to expand our vision into gaming. Dark Horse Games gives us exciting new ways to engage with fans of all kinds on a multitude of platforms.”

Some of the notable titles in Dark Horse’s library include Hellboy, Sin City, 300, Umbrella Academy, Polar, Lady Killer, Emily the Strange, Usagi Yojimbo and Resident Alien. As it happens, many of the titles mentioned have already been turned into movies and/or TV shows. So there is reason to think they could translate into video games as well. Dark Horse Games General Manager Johnny B. Lee had this to say.

“Dark Horse Comics sits at the intersection of consumer entertainment, production and publishing. We’re one of the few companies that own IP nimble enough to execute coordinated strategies across multiple platforms, and that’s a huge advantage in gaming and digital.”

While no specific titles have been revealed yet, Dark Horse Games is currently in discussions with various gaming studios to create AAA licensed titles based on the publisher’s library. These titles will be released over the next several years. The company also promises that these releases will encompass a variety of platforms, including PC, consoles, mobile and cloud-based services. Dark Horse Games’ first-party games will focus on refreshing older and less established IPs as what they call “gaming first IPs.” The newly-formed company will also produce and release multimedia projects in conjunction with its first-party games. They are in active discussions with game co-development studios and content production studios, with the first of these in-house projects already in production.

It is easy to see why Dark Horse would want to get into the video game business. The industry produced nearly $180 billion in revenue in 2020 alone. That dwarfs the movie industry. The sheer size of the video game industry’s financial footprint also likely explains why Hollywood is trying particularly hard right now to adapt video games into movies and TV shows, as the franchise potential is huge. We’ll be sure to keep you posted as further information is made available. This news comes to us via DarkHorse.com.

Topics: Hellboy, 300, Video Games