In a world where most companies are shutting down many of their smaller developing branches, Codemasters has done the exact opposite by going out and purchasing the relatively well know Swordfish Studios from Activision Vivendi. The move doesn’t look to shake too much up as Swordfish will basically be a label developing under Codemasters and Trevor Williams, the founder of Swordfish, will stay on as the leader of the studio. The studio will be developing titles using Codemasters’ proprietary EGO Engine, the tech behind Race Driver: Grid and the upcoming Operation Flashpoint 2: Dragon Rising (which has turned a few heads around here), and are currently keeping themselves busy by developing the THQ published 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand.

The financial terms of the deal were kept hush-hush, but these wheelings and dealings probably won’t impact any of us very much anyway. It is nice to see an actual buyout go through every once in while though.