Piranha Bytes GmbH

The company was founded as Piranha Bytes Software GmbH in 1997 in Germany. The team became known internationally because of the Gothic and Risen RPG series.

In 1999, the company became a wholly-owned subsidiary of Phenomedia. The company itself is now defunct, but all the assets, trademarks and most of the staff were moved to Pluto 13 GmbH when it was founded in September 2002. Although Pluto 13 was now the actual company, Piranha Bytes was still used as a label and the moniker of the development studio.

After the release of Gothic 3 in 2006, the development team split from JoWood, their publisher at the time. Pluto 13 and Piranha Bytes now no longer own the name Gothic and the franchise itself, which was officially confirmed on 6th June 2007.

The team went on to develop Risen, the spiritual successor to the Gothic series, which was released in 2009. The series was continued with two sequels Risen 2: Dark Waters in 2012 and Risen 3: Titan Lords in 2014.

2017 saw the release of the post-apocalyptic RPG Elex.

In 2019, THQ Nordic fully acquired the company and reincorporated it into Piranha Bytes GmbH. On 8 July 2024, Polish video game news/review website CD-Action reported that the company ceased operations in June 2024.