Crysis creator Crytek has officially acquired Black Sea Studios, a Bulgarian company known for its historical PC real-time strategy effort Knights of Honor and the upcoming sci-fi RTS WorldShift.

Under the deal, Black Sea has been renamed Crytek Black Sea. The financial details of the buyout were not disclosed.

"Black Sea Studios already has a very qualified and experienced development team in place and will be continually expanded in capacity to join our tradition of producing highly innovative and creative games which Crytek is known for," explained Crytek managing director Avni Yerli. Read more »

I have to admit; I had fairly average expectations going into a demo of PC real-time strategy title WorldShift earlier this week. That's not to say I had any actual preconceptions, but I've been shown countless similar-looking RTS games over the years, and let's just say it can frequently be hard to tell them all apart.

As it turns out, WorldShift is being developed by Bulgaria-based Black Sea Studios, responsible for 2005's well-received Knights of Honor. This game takes a very different tack to that one; its videogamey premise sees aliens attacking a far-future Earth where an extraterrestrial shard has turned much of humanity into mutants, and a global plague threatens to dessicate the planet. To my surprise, in certain ways it draws as much from Diablo as from StarCraft, giving the game a unique angle that should help it stand out among its more typical competitors. Read more »