The story
Daedalic Entertainment was founded on 1 March 2007 in a small Hamburg office by chief executive officer (CEO) Carsten Fichtelmann and creative director Jan Müller-Michaelis. Prior to founding Daedalic, Fichtelmann was marketing director for German publisher DTP Entertainment.
Shortly afterwards, the adventure game 1½ Knights – In Search of the Ravishing Princess Herzelinde was developed, named after the same film. On 28 August 2009, the adventure game The Whispered World followed and the adventure title A New Beginning, which focuses on climate change, was published on 8 October 2010. In 2011, the sequel to Edna & Harvey: The Breakout was released with the title Harvey’s New Eyes. A year later, a new adventure named Deponia was released to the market, which received several awards as well.
In May 2014, German publisher Bastei Lübbe acquired a majority share of 51% in Daedalic Entertainment. The following July, Daedalic opened a subsidiary studio, Daedalic Entertainment Studio West, in Düsseldorf.
In November 2016, Daedalic laid off twelve of its roughly 150 employees, primarily from the production and marketing departments, and opted not to renew several temporary contracts. In February 2018, Daedalic opened a third studio, this time in Munich under the name Daedalic Entertainment Bavaria. The new studio would consist of eight people, led by Oliver Machek, formerly of Klonk Games, as studio director and creative director, and by Stephan Harms, chief operating officer of Daedalic, as CEO. In August 2018, as Bastei Lübbe faced severe financial issues, the company started considering selling their 51% stake in Daedalic. In early 2021, the Düsseldorf and Munich studios entered liquidation; the former had been inactive since creative director Andreas Suika left in August 2019 for Epic Games, while the latter was emptied in late 2020 with all employees rehired by other Munich-based developers.
Nacon announced its intent to acquire Daedalic in February 2022 through purchase of all controlling shares of the company for an estimated $60 million. The acquisition was confirmed in April 2022.
In June 2023, Daedalic shuttered its development division, affecting 25 of its more than 90 employees. The closure came as a result of poor reception and performance of the studio's final internally developed game, The Lord of the Rings: Gollum. The report speaks of systemic problems in the German games industry. Responsible for Daedalic's decline was a changed dynamic after the studio was sold to various companies and lost its creative independence. With regard to the game Gollum, it was stated that Daedalic tried to develop an AAA title based on the American model with only a fraction of the staff. Only 85 employees developed Gollum, while other titles in the same class have around 200 employees.
From Wikipedia’s article on Daedalic Entertainment, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.5