Paradox Interactive announced today that it will acquire Harebrained Schemes, the studio behind PC turn-based games such as BattleTech and the Shadowrun series. Paradox published Battletech.
The Seattle-based Harebrained will now be a division within Paradox, which specializes in strategy games. Paradox Development Studio is responsible for series such as Stellaris and Europa Universalis. Having Harebrained as part of its team will help build that strategy game pedigree.
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Harebrained will have its own internal management and creative teams as part of Paradox.
Most of Paradox’s strategy games have history-based or hard sci-fi settings. BattleTech is more extravagant, focusing on giant robots — Battlemechs. Before BattleTech, Harebrained developed games set in the Shadowrun universe, including 2015’s Shadowrun: Hong Kong.