Swedish developers Image & Form and Zoink have announced that they will be merging. The newly combined company will be called Thunderful, and instantly becomes one of the major players in the European game development community.
Image & Form is known primarily for their SteamWorld series. The latest game in the series, SteamWorld Dig 2 (Switch, PC, PS4, PS Vita), had a very successful 2017 release and currently enjoys a healthy eighty-eight rating on Metacritic. The SteamWorld games are known for their varied genres, Steampunk style, and excellent soundtracks.
Zoink is currently putting the finishing touches on Fe, to be published by EA in on February 16th, 2018. Fe is an exploratory Metroidvania that focuses on a dark Nordic forest filled with secrets, legends, and mystical creatures. EA will be releasing it on Switch, Origin, PS4, and Xbox One.
Both companies are based in Gothenburg, Sweden. They have previously collaborated together, and will continue to develop games based on new and existing IPs under their respective labels. The main impact of this merger seems to be both companies being able to increase their PR, marketing, publishing, and business intelligence footprints. Combining resources in in single large office should also help if the unified company wants to pursue bigger, more ambitious future projects.
Brjann Sigurgeirsson, who currently serves as the CEO of Image & Form will become the first CEO of Thunderful. Klaus Lyngeled, current CEO of Zoink, now becomes the Chief Creative Officer of Thunderful. Bergsala Holding, the sole distributer of Nintendo products in the Nordic region is a major partner in for both companies, and becomes a new major financial partner with Thunderful. An unconfirmed rumor suggests that Brjann and Klaus will now begin searching for three additional companies to merge with so that they can form Scandinavian Game Developer Voltron.
Klaus Lyngeled (Zoink) and Brjann Sigurgeirsson (Image & Form)
Owe Bergsten, CEO of Bergsala Holding, sounded optimistic about the combination: “There’s strength and clarity in gathering these great game developers and all their projects under one roof. The future looks both bright and exciting.”
