Chinese media conglomerate Tencent have bought Leyou, a name which might not mean much to you but you’ll know some of their subsidiaries: Warframe developers Digital Extremes, and Dirty Bomb devs Splash Damage. Both those studios have issued statements saying hey, don’t sweat it, this will be fine.

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Free-to-play team shooter Dirty Bomb never drew the crowds it deserved. Slightly wonky business model aside (now no longer an issue – the game is proper-free now), it was fast, satisfying and skilful stuff. Not surprising, as developers Splash Damage are as veteran as they come – they’re the crew behind the excellent Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory back in 2003, and several iterations on the formula since. They’ve got a lot to teach, and have released their original design document for the game (formerly exclusive to Kickstarter backers) free for all. Grab it, an art-book and the game’s soundtrack here.

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The final update of Dirty Bomb is almost here, the last before Splash Damage end development, and it’s coming with a surprise: all the monetisation is being removed. Players will be able to get all characters, weapon skins, and rare doodads without spending a real penny. Splash Damage plan to keep Dirty Bomb servers up until at least the end of 2019, and it does tend to have a couple of hundred players online at any given moment, so it’s still not too late to try their fourth version of the Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory formula.

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Less than two months after finally launching Dirty Bomb in full, Splash Damage have announced they are stopping development on their free-to-play FPS set in merrye olde Londone tahn. The servers will stay up as long as enough players keep on playing, they say, but don’t expect any big future updates. Splash Damage say that, despite a big effort to renovate and finish it, the Enemy Territory-style shooter simply wasn’t making enough money to justify continuing live development. So it goes.

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Free-to-play team shooter Dirty Bomb has been around for yonks now, so it feels weird to say that the game is ‘out now’, but after more than three years of open beta, the competitive FPS has finally reached version 1.0, although the changes in the launch version are surprisingly slight.

Set in a nuclear-ravaged future London, this class-based shooter puts players in the boots of 23 high-tech mercenaries. There’s robo-tanks to escort, people to shoot in the face and no small amount of grind involved if you want to permanently unlock all your favourite characters. It’s also good fun, playing like a blend of Counter-Strike and Team Fortress 2, with a little bit of developer Splash Damage’s earlier Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory and Brink in there too.

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Splash Damage, the English studio behind first-person shooters like Dirty Bomb and Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory as well as the multiplayer side of Batman: Arkham Origins, is being bought by an unlikely new owner. Splash Damage are selling to Leyou Technologies Holdings Limited, which is a name you’re unlikely to know given that they’re a Chinese company whose main business has been poultry.

Looking to diversify from the exciting world of poultry and poultry products, they also own most of Digital Extremes (Leyou were Sumpo before). Isn’t business funny?

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