Daedalic Entertainment GmbH

Company type	Subsidiary
Industry	Video games
Founded	1 March 2007; 18 years ago (2007-03-01)
Founders	Carsten Fichtelmann Jan Müller-Michaelis
Headquarters	Hamburg , Germany
Key people	Carsten Fichtelmann (CEO) Stephan Harms (COO) Jan Müller-Michaelis (creative director)
Number of employees	~45[1] (2023)
Parent	Bastei Lübbe (2014–2020)[2] Nacon (2022–present)
Website	daedalic.com

Daedalic Entertainment GmbH is a Germanvideo game publisher and formerdeveloper based inHamburg. They developed variouspoint-and-click adventure games.

Daedalic Entertainment was founded on 1 March 2007 in a smallHamburg office bychief executive officer (CEO) Carsten Fichtelmann andcreative director Jan Müller-Michaelis. Prior to founding Daedalic, Fichtelmann wasmarketing director for German publisherDTP Entertainment.^[3]

Shortly afterwards, the adventure game1½ Knights – In Search of the Ravishing Princess Herzelinde was developed, named after the same film. On 28 August 2009, the adventure gameThe Whispered World followed and the adventure titleA New Beginning, which focuses on climate change, was published on 8 October 2010. In 2011, the sequel toEdna & Harvey: The Breakout was released with the titleHarvey’s New Eyes. A year later, a new adventure namedDeponia was released to the market, which received several awards as well.^{[citation needed]}

In May 2014, German publisherBastei Lübbe acquired a majority share of 51% in Daedalic Entertainment.^[4][5][6] The following July, Daedalic opened a subsidiary studio, Daedalic Entertainment Studio West, inDüsseldorf.^[7][8][9]

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.^[10][11][12] In February 2018, Daedalic opened a third studio, this time inMunich under the name Daedalic Entertainment Bavaria.^[13] The new studio would consist of eight people, led by Oliver Machek, formerly of Klonk Games, asstudio director and creative director, and by Stephan Harms,chief operating officer of Daedalic, as CEO.^[14] In August 2018, as Bastei Lübbe faced severe financial issues, the company started considering selling their 51% stake in Daedalic.^[15] In early 2021, the Düsseldorf and Munich studios entered liquidation; the former had been inactive since after creative director Andreas Suika left in August 2019 forEpic Games, while the latter was emptied in late 2020 with all employees rehired by other Munich-based developers.^[16]

Nacon announced its intent to acquire Daedalic in February 2022 through purchase of all controlling shares of the company for an estimated$60 million.^[17] The acquisition was confirmed in April 2022.^[18]

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.^[19][20][21] The report speaks of systemic problems in the German games industry. Responsible for Daedalic's decline is a changed dynamic after the studio was sold to various companies and lost its creative independence. With regard to the gameGollum, 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 developedGollum, while other titles in the same class have around 200 employees.^[22]

This list isincomplete; you can help byadding missing items.(May 2023)

• The Devil's Men
• UntitledThe Lord of the Rings game

This list isincomplete; you can help byadding missing items.(May 2023)

• Official website

• Companies based in Hamburg
• German companies established in 2007
• Video game companies established in 2007
• Video game companies of Germany
• Video game development companies
• Video game publishers
• 2014 mergers and acquisitions
• 2022 mergers and acquisitions
• Nacon

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