Namco franchises find European publishers

Sometimes game publishing is truly an international affair. The North American arm of Japanese game company Namco Bandai Games today announced that three of its properties have found publishing homes in Europe. Warhammer: Mark of Chaos and Mage Knight: Apocalypse will be released for the PC before the end of 2006 by Koch Media's Deep Silver label, while France-based Atari will take responsibility for the newly announced Saint Seiya: The Hades for the PlayStation 2 in Q3 2006.

Warhammer: Mark of Chaos is a real-time strategy game set in the popular Games Workshop fantasy universe, which GameSpot saw in action at the Electronic Entertainment Expo this year. Mage Knight: Apocalypse is a fantasy-themed action role-playing game based on the Mage Knight tabletop franchise.

Saint Seiya: The Hades is the sequel to 2005's Saint Seiya: The Sanctuary and is an action game based on the Saint Seiya manga and anime series. Gamers will be tasked with saving the world by doing battle against evil forces from Hades, known as the Specters. The game is being developed by Japanese studio Dimps, which released some screenshots today.

The moves follow not long after Namco Bandai Games America's partnership with Electronic Arts was announced, which will see the two companies bring games based on Universal Pictures movies to Europe.