Valhalla Game Studios

Valhalla Game Studios International Ltd. (ヴァルハラゲームスタジオインターナショナルリミテッド) was a video game development, entertainment and holding company.

It was founded in 2008 as Valhalla Game Studios Co., Ltd. (株式会社ヴァルハラゲームスタジオ) in Tokyo, Japan. An international division was later founded in British Columbia, Canada, which acquired all intellectual property and shares of the original Valhalla Game Studios and other affiliates, effectively making them subsidiaries of the Canadian company. To differentiate, the original Valhalla Game Studios is alternatively referred to as VGS Japan. VGS Japan is best known for Devil's Third, their flagship title which went through a long development cycle.

Valhalla's parent company, Wake Up Interactive, was acquired by Tencent for $44 million in November 2021. The following month, Wake Up merged the staff and operations of Valhalla Game Studios into another subsidiary, Soleil Ltd., effectively closing down Valhalla.

Staff
The studio is run by former Tecmo staff: Satoshi Kanematsu, who worked on Monster Rancher and Rygar, and Tomonobu Itagaki, a game designer known for his work on the Dead or Alive and Ninja Gaiden series.

Projects
Since 2009, the company had been working on Devil's Third, a "hyper-violent shooter". Originally developed as a title for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, the game was eventually developed exclusively for the Wii U. Following the closure of development partner THQ, intellectual property rights to Devil's Third were given back to Valhalla Game Studios. The game was re-announced by Nintendo at E3 2014; the title released in 2015. It received "generally unfavorable" reviews from critics, according to review aggregator website Metacritic. In November 2015, it was announced that Valhalla and Nexon would be releasing Devil's Third Online, a PC port of Devil's Third's multiplayer mode, as part of a partnership. The title would go into open beta in December in Japan and would release in the same region in late January. It was confirmed that features that were absent in the original, such as voice chat, would be added to Devil's Third Online. After a delay, the title released in Japan on June 8, 2016.

On February 14, 2023, Wanted: Dead was released by developer Soleil and publisher 110 Industries as a third person action shooter and slasher hybrid with cover based mechanics similar to those found in Devil's Third. The game was released for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, and Windows through Steam and the Epic Games Store digitally as well as physically for each home gaming console. Its plot revolves around an elite squad led by player character Lt. Hannah Stone, a cop who's part of the elite "Zombie Unit", a squad made up of former police officers serving life sentences for various offenses. They are freed and then given the chance to redeem themselves in a seemingly impossible mission while working under a larger faction, Law Enforcement, Inc. who works in a cyberpunk version of Hong Kong as they get caught up in the conspiracies and power struggles of Mega-Corps as they vie for control of the city itself. Gameplay sees players traversing through levels mostly in a linear fashion in which they dispatch enemies by engaging them in close-range melee with a katana (sometimes using a pistol to parry attacks), or at a distance with a rifle and pistol both which can be modified before each level. The game also contains minigames such as playing a crane game, a rhythm based karaoke game, and a ramen eating game to attain high scores and other perks. The includes a character progression system to gain extra health, the ability to slow time, carry more ammo and grenades, extra moves, increased attack power, and more. The game's graphics, sound, voice acting, combat and overall gameplay design were purposefully done to both mimic and be a love letter to the sixth generation of console gaming and 80's action movies as a whole. The game received "mixed or average" reviews from critics, according to review aggregator website Metacritic.

Litigation
In November 2015, it was reported that Valhalla Motion Pictures was suing Valhalla Game Studios for trademark infringement, likely due to their similar name and logo.

On March 24, 2016, the United States Patent and Trademark Office denied Valhalla Game Studios' trademark registration on the grounds that there was likelihood of confusion between Valhalla Motion Pictures and Valhalla Games Studios' mark.