Giana Sisters Studio Black Forest Games Splits From THQ Nordic to Launch Indie Group Third Signal
Black Forest Games, the Offenburg based developer behind Giana Sisters: Twisted Dreams and the Destroy All Humans! remakes, has spun out of THQ Nordic after nine years inside Embracer Group. Through a management buyout, the studio becomes the founding member of a new independent group called Third Signal, while THQ Nordic and Black Forest Games continue to collaborate on game development tasks going forward.
A Management Buyout After Nine Years
Third Signal is the new independent group of game studios that Black Forest Games is joining as its founding member, with Black Forest’s own management team becoming co-owners of the group alongside investment partner Third Signal Ventures. The studio stays based in Offenburg, Germany, and keeps developing and publishing games under its own label even as it leaves the THQ Nordic fold it joined in 2017.
Third Signal founder and CEO Andreas Tobler framed the move as a bet on smaller, developer driven teams rather than large, centralized studios, pointing to Black Forest’s track record as proof that a lean, independent setup can still produce standout games. Black Forest Games managing directors Adrian Goersch and Andreas Speer, who both become co-founders of Third Signal Studios, described the split as a chance to shape their own future again after nearly a decade as part of a larger publisher group.
“We are grateful to THQ Nordic and Embracer for nine good years.”
Adrian Goersch, co-founder of Third Signal and managing director of Black Forest Games
From Spellbound’s Ashes to Nine Years Under THQ Nordic
Black Forest Games was founded in 2012 by former staff of Spellbound Entertainment, the studio behind the Desperados series and Arcania: Gothic 4 that collapsed into insolvency that same year. Under its own name, Black Forest built a catalog of revivals and remakes, including Giana Sisters: Twisted Dreams, Destroy All Humans! and its sequel Destroy All Humans! 2, Reprobed, Fade to Silence, and Rogue Stormers. THQ Nordic acquired the studio in 2017, folding it into what would later become part of the sprawling Embracer Group. Black Forest was also among the Embracer studios affected by layoffs in 2024, when it was previously reported to have lost roughly half its staff amid the publisher’s wider restructuring.
Destroy All Humans! 2, Reprobed is one of several Black Forest Games revivals made during the studio’s nine years under THQ Nordic.
What Third Signal Means for Black Forest’s Future
Third Signal is pitched as a group of premium PC and console studios co-owned by Third Signal Ventures and the management teams of the studios that join it, with Black Forest Games as its first member. The arrangement lets Black Forest keep working on an unannounced new project with what its leadership calls a lean, experienced team, while THQ Nordic remains a development partner rather than a parent company. It is the latest example of a mid-size studio choosing independence over staying inside a large publisher group, following a wave of similar spinouts and layoffs across Embracer’s portfolio over the past two years.
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Picture Source: Black Forest Games, Black Forest Games
