Supercell completes full takeover of Merge Mansion maker Metacore

Supercell has spent most of its history as a company that grows its own games and hands them to small teams that run them for years. That portfolio now includes a title it did not build. On October 19, 2026, the Helsinki publisher completed its purchase of Metacore, the fellow Finnish studio behind Merge Mansion, taking 100 percent ownership and folding the merge puzzle game into its live games portfolio alongside Hay Day.

Metacore was not a stranger to Supercell. The studio, which began life as Everywear Games before rebranding in 2020, launched Merge Mansion that same year: a merge-2 mystery puzzle game in which players renovate a neglected family estate while uncovering its secrets. Supercell backed the effort early, putting EUR 25 million (about $29.6 million) into the company in 2020 and later agreeing a $180 million (EUR 150 million) credit line in 2021 to help it scale the game. By the time acquisition talks became public, Supercell was already Metacore's largest shareholder.

The relationship also had a failed experiment behind it. In January 2023, Metacore took over Everdale, a Supercell game that had stalled in soft launch, and tried to rework and relaunch it. The studio killed the game in September 2024, a detail worth remembering now.

The deal itself moved slowly in public. Supercell announced in May 2026 that it intended to buy the remainder of Metacore and bring Merge Mansion into its live games portfolio. On August 31, 2026, Supercell said the deal had been signed and was expected to complete by the end of September. The confirmation of the close only arrived on October 19, roughly three weeks later than that target, with Metacore writing on LinkedIn that the acquisition "has been closed" and Supercell posting that the Merge Mansion team "has moved in".

Key Facts

PocketGamer.biz reported on October 19, 2026 that Supercell had closed its purchase of the Finnish studio, taking 100 percent ownership of the Merge Mansion maker, with the exact terms of the transaction undisclosed. The report said Metacore's games team had officially started their journey as Supercellians and would continue to develop Merge Mansion with the stated aim of returning the casual game to its chart-topping spot.

Mobilegamer.biz reported on October 19, 2026 that Metacore is now fully owned by Supercell and that the studio had cut 159 staff at its Helsinki headquarters while closing offices in Germany and Sweden. The same report, citing AppMagic estimates, put Merge Mansion's lifetime earnings at around $490 million since its 2020 launch, and noted that former Small Giant Games CEO Jose Saarniniemi joined as general manager of Merge Mansion in June 2026.

GamesIndustry.biz reported on May 6, 2026 that Merge Mansion had been downloaded by more than 60 million players, and that Metacore claimed the game had generated around $700 million. The article quoted Supercell CEO Ilkka Paananen saying that Merge Mansion "has a strong core that players have genuinely loved for over five years", and that he believed its best days were still ahead.

PocketGamer.biz reported on May 5, 2026 that up to 160 roles were put at risk in Finland as part of a restructuring focused on Merge Mansion, and that Metacore was reviewing operations in Germany and Sweden. Metacore CEO Mika Tammenkoski said the company had built an organisation around growth ambitions that did not materialise, and that competition in the merge-2 space had intensified every year since launch, with Gossip Harbor and Travel Town proving particularly successful.

Supercell said in an announcement dated August 31, 2026 that the deal had been signed with completion expected by the end of September 2026, that terms would not be disclosed, and that for players the game would continue as normal. Sara Bach, President of Supercell, described Merge Mansion as a game that created a completely new genre, citing a strong brand, a passionate player community and unique gameplay and narrative.

Analysis

The financial logic is easier to read than the headline suggests. Merge Mansion has been downloaded more than 60 million times and has earned somewhere between roughly $490 million, per AppMagic estimates cited by Mobilegamer.biz, and the roughly $700 million Metacore itself has claimed. The gap between those two figures is wide enough to matter, and it is a reminder that self-reported lifetime revenue and third-party estimates rarely agree. What is not in dispute is the shape of the curve: Tammenkoski himself conceded that growth had plateaued, and that Metacore's new game investments had not succeeded in launching anything globally.

What this really means is that Supercell has bought a turnaround project rather than a growth engine, and it has bought it cheaply in organisational terms. The restructuring that accompanied the deal removed up to 160 roles in Finland, with 159 confirmed cuts at the Helsinki headquarters, and shut offices in Germany and Sweden. That is a studio being reduced to the one asset that still works. The arrival of Jose Saarniniemi, the former Small Giant Games CEO, as general manager of Merge Mansion in June 2026 fits the same pattern: a live operations specialist installed to run a single game with a loyal audience.

The competitive picture explains the urgency. Since Merge Mansion launched in 2020, the merge-2 category has filled with rivals, and Tammenkoski named Gossip Harbor and Travel Town as particularly successful. Supercell's argument, made repeatedly by Paananen, is that its live operations and user acquisition machinery can push a plateaued game back up the charts. That is credible from a company that has kept Hay Day running for over a decade, but it is also the standard acquirer's promise. The difference is that Supercell has owned a large slice of this studio for years, has already run one joint project into the ground with Everdale, and is therefore buying something it has had every opportunity to fix.

The bigger picture here is consolidation inside Finnish mobile gaming, executed by the country's most successful exporter and financed from its own balance sheet. Supercell provided a EUR 25 million investment in 2020 and a $180 million credit line in 2021, and now it has taken the whole company. Whether that reads as patient capital or as a slow-motion foreclosure depends on the outcome, and the outcome will be measured in chart positions rather than in press releases.

Why It Matters

For players, the practical answer is that little changes immediately. Supercell said the game continues as normal, and the same team is developing it. But ownership changes what a game is allowed to become. Merge Mansion now sits inside a portfolio that Supercell actively operates, and its roadmap will be judged against the standards of a company that expects its live games to run for many years. The stated ambition, returning the game to its chart-topping spot, is not a modest one for a title whose growth had plateaued.

For the Finnish development scene, the close is a sober data point. Metacore raised significant capital from Supercell, scaled a headquarters in Helsinki, opened offices in Germany and Sweden, and then cut 159 roles and retreated to a single game. That is a familiar arc in mobile free-to-play, in a country that has produced an unusually dense cluster of successful studios. The talent released by the restructuring will disperse into that cluster.

For Supercell, the deal tests a proposition the company has made before: that its live operations capability is transferable to games it did not design. Hay Day is the precedent it points to. Everdale is the counterexample. Merge Mansion, with 60 million downloads behind it and a brand strong enough that Supercell's president describes it as having created a completely new genre, is the case that will settle the argument.

Next Up

The immediate test is retention and revenue rather than announcements. Watch whether Merge Mansion returns to the top of the merge-2 charts in the months after the transition, and whether Supercell's user acquisition spending shows up in download estimates from firms such as AppMagic. Watch too for how Saarniniemi's team is staffed after the cuts, since a game being pushed back up the charts needs live operations capacity, not just a roadmap.

The wider question is whether this is a one-off or the start of a pattern. Supercell has absorbed a studio it had already financed twice, while promising to do what Metacore could not. If Merge Mansion climbs, other plateaued mid-size mobile studios with strong brands will look like acquisition candidates for large publishers with live operations expertise. If it does not, the lesson will be that 60 million downloads are not the same thing as a growth curve.