Funding the Return of a Legend: How GreaterThan Group is Backing Star Wars: Fate of the Old Republic
The gaming industry held its breath at The Game Awards 2025 with the surprise reveal of Star Wars: Fate of the Old Republic. This highly anticipated successor to the beloved Knights of the Old Republic series is being developed under the guidance of original director Casey Hudson at Arcanaut Studios, a new studio staffed with veteran BioWare developers. Now, a year after the initial announcement, the financial backbone of this ambitious project has been revealed.
According to reports from Bloomberg, Arcanaut Studios is securing its future through investment from GreaterThan Group, a new holding company founded by Simon Zhu. Zhu, the former president of global investments and partnerships at Chinese tech giant NetEase, is launching this entity with a mission to support creative freedom in a volatile market.
The Founder’s Vision: Why "Everyone Wins"
Simon Zhu brings over 13 years of experience in navigating complex funding deals for major titles, including negotiations for Devolver Digital and Sky: Children of the Light. However, his departure from NetEase in 2025 marked a significant shift in the landscape of gaming finance. NetEase’s widescale retreat from gaming investments led to abrupt game cancellations and studio closures, including the shutting down of Humanoid Origin, Casey Hudson’s previous studio.
Zhu attributes this exodus to major tech companies pulling back from gaming to focus on the "AI investment gold rush." In contrast, GreaterThan Group aims to address the aftermath of this turmoil. Zhu describes the investors in his new group as "successful individuals" and "gaming and tech entrepreneurs" who recognize the potential in an industry left with an overabundance of undervalued talent.
Zhu’s philosophy centers on the belief that creative integrity and commercial viability are not mutually exclusive. He articulated this mission clearly in his discussion with Bloomberg:
"You can have player satisfaction. You can have commercial success. You can have the achievement of art. You don’t need to compromise or sacrifice one thing for the other. Let’s give the best creator the opportunity to work on a dream project. Everyone wins."
By framing GreaterThan as a "rebalancing force" in an industry that often "treats developers so badly," Zhu positions the group as a corrective to the recent wave of corporate consolidation and budget cuts. The goal is to demonstrate that it is possible to "make good money and provide good entertainment to people in a decent and honest way."
Expanding the Portfolio: From Star Wars to BulletFarm
While Star Wars: Fate of the Old Republic headlines the announcement, GreaterThan Group is deploying its raised $100 million capital across multiple studios to support this new model of development. Beyond Arcanaut, the group is investing in BulletFarm, a studio founded by former Call of Duty: Black Ops design director David Vonderhaar.
BulletFarm was previously caught in the crossfire of NetEase’s funding cull, highlighting the precarious nature of developer stability in the current market. Vonderhaar has described the studio’s current, unannounced project as akin to "if David Lynch made shooters," suggesting a bold, unconventional approach to the shooter genre.
These investments signal a potential turning point for independent and veteran-led studios. By backing creators like Hudson and Vonderhaar, GreaterThan Group is betting that supporting dream projects can yield both artistic achievement and commercial success. If the group can follow through on these promises, it may offer a viable alternative to the traditional publisher-developer dynamic that has dominated the industry in recent years.
