In addition to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Activision has scooped up the publishing license for Nickelodeon cartoon Spongebob Squarepants, the company announced today.
The licensing rights to games based on television network Nickelodeon's franchises were previously owned by THQ, which published a number of cartoon-related series including the Spongebob Squarepants, Nicktoons and Fairly Oddparents games.
The global, multi-year agreement grants Activision exclusive developing and publishing rights for all Spongebob games, beginning with SpongeBob SquarePants: Plankton's Robotic Revenge. The game, in development with Quebec-based Naughty Bear developer Behaviour Interactive, will be a third-person co-op title combining exploration and puzzle-solving. It will launch on Oct. 22 for PS3, Xbox 360, Wii U, Wii, Nintendo 3DS and DS.
After THQ's bankruptcy filing and subsequent liquidation, Activision announced that it had signed a multi-year deal with Nickelodeon to publish games based on the network's new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles series. The first game, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows, will launch on Xbox Live Arcade and Steam for Windows PC on Aug. 28, with a PlayStation Network version following on Sept. 24.
Polygon has reached out to Activision for more details on this second licensing agreement and to ask if the company plans to obtain the rights to additional Nickelodeon video games in the future. We will share more details as we have them.