Starbreeze aims to snap up the Valhalla engine in $8.6M deal

Stockholm-based Starbreeze Studios seeks to acquire the Valhalla game engine in a stock deal valued at roughly 73 million Swedish kroner (~$8.6 million USD).

Starbreeze is riding high on the success of Payday 2, which taps the company's extant Diesel 2.0 engine and carried the studio to remarkable success last year. 

Starbreeze intends to continue working on Payday 2 for years to come, but that work will be on Diesel; Valhalla has been under developemtn for four years and still isn't finished. 

According to Starbreeze, "leading Valhalla architects have joined Starbreeze to secure the transfer of technology and the continued development of the engine," and at least one of them has been employed by Starbreeze since late last year. The acquisition deal is now contingent on a 90 percent approval from attendees of a shareholders meeting in June.

"By acquiring Valhalla we gain access to a powerful future-proofed engine and production pipeline," stated Starbreeze chief Bo Andersson Klint. "This will gear us up to take on the challenges and opportunities in future game development."

Starbreeze wants the engine (which is reputedly VR-ready) for use in development of upcoming games, including its first-person shooter Storm and Starbreeze-owned Overkill Games' Walking Dead project, which was previously expected to be a Diesel 2.0 game.