World War Z Sequel Hinted at by Saber Interactive Bosses

Yesterday, THQ Nordic parent company Embracer Group announced its acquisition of Saber Interactive. Already the studio seems to be teasing the possibility of a World War Z follow-up. For now, Saber intends to continue supporting the online zombie adventure in its current state. Such ongoing support must persist if a sequel is indeed to go into production down the line.

In an earnings presentation with Embracer Group, Saber’s Co-founder and CEO, Matthew Karch, spoke of how well World War Z is performing, confirming sales of “three or four million copies.” Apparently, the title maintains a devoted player-base, too, which continues to receive new content in updates. So far, Karch noted, “it’s a great franchise for us, we see a lot of potential in the future.” Seemingly, that potential could result in a sequel, the CEO teased.

I wouldn’t be surprised if we continued to work on it and we certainly don’t want to abandon our fanbase, because the way games are made these days is, it’s constantly feeding your fanbase even if the content is free. That’s how you keep your community alive, and if you want to ever get to the sequel, you’ve got to keep them there. So we understand that even games that are for sale are games as a service, so that’s the way we approach all our development with all the games that we’re working on.

As far as the legalities of licensed IP are concerned, Saber doesn’t appear too worried. In fact, there are certain “protections” in place that will allow the team to continue working with World War Z. Karch explained,

Personally, I think licensed IP sometimes gets a bad rap. You can make just as much money with a licensed IP as you can with your own IP, it’s just a question of how long you have that IP for. In the case of World War Z, we have some pretty good protections and we can continue to develop that franchise and plan to. And as long as we have that, then it’s almost the equivalent of owning it with just the obligation to share on the back end a bit.

Saber’s Chief Creative Officer Tim Willits, who joined the team last year from id Software, expressed a similar sentiment about the studio’s future plans. According to VGC, Willits shared that World War Z “really taught the team to create intense multiplayer co-op fun, and we’ll take that knowledge and continue with this brand.”