EA Reportedly In Talks To Buy Codemasters, Could Cut Out Take-Two

A little over a month ago, publisher Take-Two announced it had agreed to purchase Codemasters, a British company best known for its racing franchises. It would have helped to fill a hole in Take-Two's genre output--it doesn't do much in the way of racing games now--but it appears those plans could be on hold because of an apparent bid by Electronic Arts.

According to Sky News, Electronic Arts has made a larger offer than the £725 million (nearly $1 billion) offered by Take-Two, and it will likely be made public on Monday. It doesn't appear Codemasters has agreed to EA's offer yet, and the publisher refused to comment when asked by Sky News.

Take-Two could potentially reignite its Midnight Club franchise with Codemasters' talent, but acquiring such acclaimed racing studios would also make sense for Electronic Arts. Though Criterion Games had success with Need for Speed and resumed development on the franchise, Need for Speed as a whole has struggled in recent years. More racing experts to contribute to the next game could be very valuable to EA.

The acquisition of Codemasters by either company would be big news in any year, though it's far from the largest acquisition announced in 2020. Microsoft agreed to purchase Bethesda Softworks for $7.5 billion. This makes it the second-biggest game industry acquisition of all time, only trailing Tencent's Supercell purchase for $8.6 billion. Microsoft's deal hasn't officially closed yet, meaning Bethesda legally has to operate as a separate entity for now, but it will provide Microsoft with one of--if not the--best game studio rosters in the world.