Keywords Studios : Announces Acquisition of Coconut Lizard

Keywords Studios is delighted to announce the acquisition of Coconut Lizard, a company providing specialised game development services.

Based in Gateshead, United Kingdom and founded in 2015, Coconut Lizard is an established provider of engineering services, with particularly deep expertise in the Unreal game development engine.

The acquisition furthers Keywords' strategy to become the 'go-to' technical and creative services platform for the global video games industry.

Coconut Lizard provides a range of services including game optimisation, game hardening, game porting and middleware integration for the Unreal Engine game development suite. Its clients include Microsoft's Rare studio, where Coconut Lizard provides a range of services to support and further develop the hit multiplayer game, Sea of Thieves.

In addition to expanding Keywords' Game Development services, it brings strong access to game development talent including graduates from the specialised video game development and engineering degree courses at University of Sunderland and Newcastle University.

Coconut Lizard was founded by Robert Troughton, a veteran video games programmer who successfully founded and built up a studio before selling it to Epic Games in 2014.

The business has added 10 developers to its team since January 2020, taking its current headcount to 29 with further growth expected during the year.

Andrew Day, CEO of Keywords Studios, said of the acquisition: 'We are delighted to welcome Robert and the team at Coconut Lizard to the Keywords family.

'The Coconut Lizard team will bring further expertise in the Unreal Engine as well as access to talent to our wider team of around 1,000 people working across our Game Development studios internationally.'