CD PROJEKT Acquires Independent Game Studio The Molasses Flood

By Kevin Fox and Paste Staff | October 22, 2021 | 1:30pm

Video Games News The Molasses Flood

CD PROJEKT Acquires Independent Game Studio The Molasses Flood

CD PROJEKT, the Polish videogame company known best for The Witcher series and Cyberpunk 2077, has acquired the US-based developer The Molasses Flood. The company, whose name comes from an event in Jan. 1919 in Boston where 21 people died and 150 were injured after a storage tank burst, was founded in Boston in 2014 by game devs that had worked on series like BioShock, Halo, Guitar Hero and Rock Band. Their first release was The Flame in the Flood, a procedurally generated survival game with graphics slightly invocative of the Psychonauts series. Last October, they released the E-10+-rated Drake Hollow, a third person action-survival base-builder with fantasy elements.

In a press release, CD PROJEKT President and Joint CEO Adam Kici?ski says of the acquisition, “We’re always on the lookout for teams who make games with heart. The Molasses Flood share our passion for videogame development, they’re experienced, quality-oriented, and have great technological insight. I’m convinced they will bring a lot of talent and determination to the Group.”

“From the inception of The Molasses Flood, it was our goal to create games that touch and inspire people,” says Molasses Flood studio head Forrest Dowling. “When CD PROJEKT approached us about the possibility of working together, we saw an incredible opportunity to reach a much wider audience through a collaboration with a company we love, creating games in worlds we love. We could not be more excited to continue our mission with the support of CD PROJEKT and their incredibly talented team.”

Not a ton of insight to be gleaned there, but everyone is excited, which is typically how you want a partnership to start.

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The Molasses Flood will be working closely with CD PROJEKT but will not, as of right now, be merged with any existing teams. The press release says they “will be working on [their] own ambitious project which is based on one of CD PROJEKT’s IPs.” So maybe a spin-off of the critically-acclaimed and well-established Witcher franchise, or the very controversial Cyberpunk, with some of the base-building and survival mechanics Molasses Flood is known for? Their style could definitely work in either universe, and it’ll be interesting to see how the small studio adapts to its new ownership.