Suda51 and his Grasshopper Manufacture development studio have been bought by Japanese publisher GungHo Entertainment.

GungHo works primarily in Asia, and has previously acquired Game Arts (the Lunar and Grandia series), Acquire (Tenchu), and Gravity, the creators of Korean MMORPG Ragnarok Online. GungHo has release Ragnarok Odyssey for the Vita in North America.

"By joining GungHo Online Entertainment," said Suda51 in a statement, "we are aligning ourselves with a strong, established publishing force that will support our vision to further create inspired new games that appeal players across the world. The Grasshopper team and I have many new ideas to share with our fans as we move forward so this union with GOE will help us realize our future plans.”

Terms of the deal were not disclosed, and it's unknown what will happen if anything with Grasshopper's back-catalog, as well as games currently in the works such as Killer is Dead (which may be published by XSEED in North America and Kadokawa Games in Japan).

GungHo says that more news on Grasshopper's projects will be released in the coming months. Given GungHo's online focus, it'll be interesting to see how this may affect Suda51's games.