Microsoft acquires Wasteland maker inXile Entertainment

inXile Entertainment, makers of Wasteland 2 and The Bard’s Tale 4, is being bought by Microsoft, the company announced at today’s X018 keynote in Mexico City.

Matt Booty, the head of Microsoft Studios, announced the acquisition, crediting inXile with developing a catalog of deep and engaging role-playing games. The company said inXile would continue to work autonomously.

inXile Entertainment was founded in 2002 by Brian Fargo, who created The Bard’s Tale in the 1980s and later was co-creator of the Wasteland franchise. The studio’s first launch was a variant The Bard’s Tale in 2004, and was followed wth Wasteland 2 in 2014 and Torment: Tides of Numenera in 2017, both of which were successfully funded by Kickstarter campaigns raising a total of $7 million.

The Bard’s Tale 4 launched in mid-September. Wasteland 3 is expected in 2019, following Wasteland 2’s 2014 launch and 2015 “director’s cut” re-release on PlayStation 4, Windows PC and Xbox One.

Microsoft’s last studio acquisitions were announced at E3, when the company said it had bought Playground Games (Forza Horizon), Ninja theory (Hellblade), Undead Labs (State of Decay) and Compulsion Games (We Happy Few).