Norwegian studio Artplant buy Project IGI brand from Square Enix

Norwegian games studio Artplant has reacquired dormant first-person shooter Project IGI from Square Enix. The game was released in 2000, with a sequel following in 2003. Both of these were published by Britsoft, but more importantly, they were developed by Innerloop.

This is crucial because Artplant was founded in 2001 by former Innerloop employees, which was probably a keen part of why Artplant has aimed to reacquire the license, and although no new games are planned in the series at this point, Artplant’s CEO Jack Wulff has said this this deal is important for the company, marking a "shift in strategy from making games for publishers to producing and owning our own games"

Sadly, we’re unlikely to see a rerelease or remaster of the classic FPS title, as Square Enix stil own publishing rights to the original two games in the series. This means that if we’re going to see a new Project IGI, it’s going to take the form of a yet to be announced reboot.

Square Enix has the majority of Eidos’ properties following its acquisition of the company in 2009 and although it’s pilfered several of them to launch successful reboots, many of them remain mothballed, although they’ve made several of their licenses available for third parties to pitch on via the Square Enix Collective initiative, which has seen a Fear Effect game go into development after a reboot.