Former NetEase exec's new investment group is funding Star Wars: Fate of the Old Republic because 'everyone wins' if you 'give the best creator the opportunity to work on a dream project'
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After raising $100 million, GreaterThan Group is also funding a shooter from former Black Ops design director David Vonderhaar.
One of the bigger showings at The Game Awards 2025 was the surprise reveal of Star Wars: Fate of the Old Republic, a successor to the beloved Knights of the Old Republic series being developed under the leadership of original KotOR director Casey Hudson at a new studio staffed with other BioWare veterans.
A year after the project's announcement, we now know how Arcanaut Studios is paying the bills. Bloomberg reports that Fate of the Old Republic is being funded by investment from GreaterThan Group, a new holding company launched by former NetEase president of global investments and partnerships, Simon Zhu.
Simon Zhu, GreaterThan Group founder and former NetEase president of global investments and partnerships. (Image credit: Simon Zhu)
After 13 years of negotiating NetEase funding deals for Devolver, Marvel Snap developer Second Dinner, the Chinese release of Sky: Children of the Light, and more, Zhu left the Chinese tech goliath in 2025. His departure followed NetEase's widescale retreat from gaming industry investments, which saw many of its publishing partnerships end in abrupt game cancellations and studio closures. Casey Hudson's last studio, Humanoid Origin, was one of the developers forced to close shop after losing NetEase funding.
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While he says "big tech walked away" from the gaming industry to funnel capital into the AI investment gold rush, Zhu told Bloomberg that GreaterThan Group's investors—"all very successful individuals—gaming and tech entrepreneurs," he says—aim to tap the potential of the overabundance of undervalued game developers left floundering by years of widespread industry turmoil.
"You can have player satisfaction. You can have commercial success. You can have the achievement of art," Zhu said. "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."
(Image credit: Arcanaut Studios)
In an industry that "treats developers so badly," Zhu says "there should always be a rebalancing force." Presumably, we're meant to understand GreaterThan as that corrective. In addition to Arcanaut and Fate of the Old Republic, GreaterThan is investing the $100 million it's raised into BulletFarm, a studio founded by former Call of Duty: Black Ops design director David Vonderhaar and yet another developer that was caught in the NetEase funding cull. At this year's GDC, Vonderhaar said the studio's current, unannounced project is like "if David Lynch made shooters."
Zhu casts GreaterThan's initial investments in a benevolent light, saying "it’s about making a good case that we can make good money and provide good entertainment to people in a decent and honest way." If GreaterThan can follow through, it's a demonstration the industry could certainly use.
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