Dauntless Dev Acquired By Mobile Giant Behind Battle Royale Game Free Fire

Dauntless developer Phoenix Labs has been acquired. The Canadian studio sold itself to Garena, the Singapore-based video game company owned by Sea Limited.

In a joint statement, the companies said, "The teams intend to work together to continue building Phoenix Labs' world-class development team, supporting the growth of Dauntless, and exploring new opportunities in global markets and on mobile."

The transaction closed "in recent days," but terms were not disclosed.

Phoenix Labs CEO Jesse Houston said Garena--which was an early investor in Phoenix Labs--has been a great partner for Dauntless since its early days, and he is excited to scale up their partnership with this acquisition.

"With this next step, we're able to ensure that we can provide the best possible experience for Dauntless players around the world," Houston said. "We're extremely excited about what the future holds for Phoenix Labs, as we continue to support our ever-growing Dauntless community and explore future games."

For his part, Sea Limited founder Forrest Li said, "Our skills sets are highly complementary, and we see many exciting opportunities ahead that our teams can explore together."

Dauntless, which is a co-op action RPG, is the first title from Phoenix Labs following its founding in 2014. The studio has offices in Vancouver, San Francisco, and Seattle, and in total, it has more than 100 employees. It was founded by a team of former Riot employees.

As for Garena, the studio is perhaps best known for its free-to-play battle royale game, Free Fire. The statement goes on to say that the leadership team at Phoenix Labs will continue to run the studio after the acquisition, while the two companies will work together to "add new features to Dauntless" and look to grow in places like Asia and Latin America.

Dauntless is currently available on Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and Nintendo Switch; the PC version is exclusive to the Epic Games Store. A mobile version is also in the works.