Paradox Interactive announced that it has acquired full ownership of AGE Studio, parent company of renowned French development studio AGEOD, merging two titans of the strategy gaming community and adding a variety of upcoming titles to the expanding Paradox Interactive portfolio.

“We have played and enjoyed AGEOD’s titles for years and greatly respect what they have achieved as a development studio. We see this acquisition as an opportunity to make AGEOD’s titles accessible to a wider audience on the global market,” said Fredrik Wester, CEO of Paradox Interactive. “AGEOD will continue to operate as a self-run partner studio, with its own line of products based on the AGE-engine and its own development team while Paradox will assist with our publishing resources and networks,” Wester continued.

“This alliance will allow AGEOD to expand our audience and availability via Paradox’s worldwide network as well as obtain skills and expertise that our limited means prevented us from achieving on our own,” Philippe Thibaut, lead game designer and co-founder of AGEOD noted. “We will concentrate on our core expertise of product development and be able to offer our customers brand new strategy games as early as 2010, with the same level of care and dedication that we have for the past 5 years.”

Philippe Malacher, Head of Development and co-founder of AGEOD, added, “We are confident that, ultimately, all strategy game customers will be the primary beneficiaries of this partnership that will allow us to build more extensively on our past successes and on Paradox’s invaluable preponderance on the marketplace.”

The first title to release under this new alliance is Rise of Prussia, scheduled for a Q1, 2010 release.