The Embracer Group is a fascinating company that has rapidly come to the forefront of the gaming landscape thanks to its battleplan of buying everything that it sees. Over just the past few years the company has gobbled up Crystal Dynamics, Asmodee, the Lord of the Rings IP, Limited Run Games, Eidos Montreal and more. Under its vast umbrella and various sub-structures are 120+ studios working on a staggering amount of games, like the recent Destroy All Humans 2 remake.

However, the speed at which Embracer kept growing always seemed unsustainable, and now that appears to be the case. Embracer Group has announced a large-scale restructuring plan in a bid to reduce its debs, which as of March 31st of this year had reached a whopping $1.45 billion. Embracer’s stated goal is to get that debt down to $930 million by the end of financial year 2023/2024.

It also intends to reduce overheads by 10%, equating to roughly $75 million per year. This will mean, “the closing of studios and termination of projects, that have not yet been announced and with low projected returns.”

Currently Embracer employees something in the region of 14,000 people, but it’s unclear what Embracer wants to reduce this too.

“During the past years, Embracer invested significantly both in acquisitions and into a strategy of accelerated organic growth. We have acquired some of the world’s leading entertainment IP and we have invested into one of the largest pipelines of games across the industry. The program presented today will transform us from our current heavy-investment-mode to a highly cash-flow generative business this year.” said Wingfors, CEO of Embracer Group.

Earlier this year, Embracer hit a massive setback when it revealed that a substantial $2 billion deal had fallen through at the very last minute.

This will be a fascinating company to watch over the next few years. The wealth of studios and IPs they have is insane and if they can get all their ducks in a row they have the potential to output games at an astonishing rate. But they are also a bloated, gigantic company and its going to be hard to keep an eye on every project, so I imagine they’ll have to put a lot of trust in individual studios to look after themselves.

Embracer has gone all in, but will it pay out big time?