Nordic Games acquires rights to Atari's Desperados and Silver

Nordic Games has acquired the Atari intellectual properties Desperados and Silver, the Sweden-based licensing company announced today.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Atari's Desperados franchise consists of two real-time tactics titles: the 2001 Windows PC game Desperados: Wanted Dead or Alive and its 2006 sequel, Desperados 2: Cooper's Revenge (screenshot above). German studio Spellbound Entertainment developed both games, as well as a follow-up in the same universe that Atari did not publish, Helldorado. Viva Media released that game in 2007 in Europe, and in 2009 in North America.

Atari S.A., the Paris-based parent company of Atari Inc., was previously known as Infogrames — the publisher that released the action RPG Silver in 1999 on PC and in 2000 on Dreamcast and Mac. Infogrames UK developed the original PC title, while Spiral House did the Mac and Dreamcast ports.

The acquisition was handled by Nordic Games Licensing; going forward, the properties will be managed by the company's Vienna-based publishing arm, Nordic Games.

A Nordic Games representative confirmed to Polygon that the purchase of these intellectual properties is unrelated to the bankruptcy auctions being held next month for Atari Inc., the American subsidiary of the Atari S.A. holding company. Atari Inc. filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in January to separate from Atari S.A., but the French parent was the owner of Desperados and Silver. The spokesperson also confirmed that the acquisition does not include the rights to Helldorado, since Atari did not publish that game.

This past April, Nordic spent $4.9 million to acquire most of the intellectual property that remained after THQ's first bankruptcy auctions, including the rights to franchises such as Darksiders and Red Faction. Check out our story on the lesser-known European publisher's history for more details on the company.