Sumo buys Everybody's Gone to the Rapture studio The Chinese Room

Sumo has bought The Chinese Room.

The Crackdown 3 developer said it had acquired The Chinese Room, the studio behind Everybody's Gone to the Rapture and Dear Esther, from founders Dan Pinchbeck and Jessica Curry.

Brighton-based Pinchbeck is on board as creative director of The Chinese Room, while Curry will continue her career independently as a composer, Sumo said. Pinchbeck added he's now working on new concepts. In a blog post, he said The Chinese Room is talking to potential partners about a new game, "something bigger"... "something that takes a more traditional game genre - no, you don't get to know what just yet - and lets us spin our worlds and stories on top of that. It's going to be very, very exciting."

The Chinese Room downed tools in September 2017, with Pinchbeck telling Eurogamer: "We're done with walking simulators." In late July of that year, Pinchbeck and Curry laid off the entire staff - at that point what amounted to eight people - and ditched their Brighton office for home. (For more on what happened, check out our in-depth feature on The Chinese Room.)

As for the Sheffield-based Sumo, the company has been on something of an acquisition spree of late. In January it bought CCP's Newcastle studio and, in 2016, it opened a Nottingham studio.