Thunderkick has not been acquired, at least not according to anything I could verify. As of October 2026, I found no announcement, regulatory filing or credible trade report of a sale, and the studio’s own site shows only game launches and operator partnerships. If a deal does land, the real risk to Thunderkick’s catalogue is a loss of strangeness, not a loss of games.
That’s still worth examining now. A deal is easier to judge before it’s announced than after, and Thunderkick is the sort of studio where ownership matters more than usual. If you’d like to explore Thunderkick’s catalogue, many Canadian operators licensed by iGaming Ontario and AGCO carry their games in their slots library.
Has Thunderkick Actually Been Acquired?
No acquisition has been confirmed. Searches of recent industry news and of Thunderkick’s own news feed turned up nothing, so treat any claim of a completed sale with caution until the studio or a buyer says so publicly.
What the record does show is a studio in expansion mode. Thunderkick’s homepage currently lists a partnership with Norwegian operator Norsk Tipping that adds Esqueleto Explosivo 2 and Midas Golden Touch to its lobby, alongside launch posts for Bjorn, Beware of Bear and Greedy Pumpking. The RTP and volatility for those three newer titles are not confirmed in the sources I checked. European Gaming also covered a partnership in Italy in October 2024, a Relum deal in March 2024 and a Latin American hire in September 2024. Studios heading for a sale don’t usually look like this, though plenty of good deals have been struck by studios doing well.
What Is Verifiably True About Thunderkick Today?
According to European Gaming’s March 2023 report, Thunderkick received one of Sweden’s newly installed supplier licences. As of October 2026, SlotVault’s earlier coverage of the Swedish licence puts the catalogue at roughly 100 games, built by a Stockholm team of around 80 people. The studio’s output stays small by Pragmatic Play standards, and that scarcity is part of its appeal.
Distribution is the other key fact. As iGamingFuture reported on 27 September 2022, Relax Gaming named Thunderkick as a Powered By studio partner. Its games therefore already travel through another company’s integration and operator network. A buyer wouldn’t be taking over a studio with a fully independent route to market. That cuts two ways, which I’ll come back to.
Thunderkick hasn’t published its ownership structure on its homepage, and I couldn’t confirm the details from the sources available. Anyone speculating about who a buyer might be is guessing.
What Makes Thunderkick Worth Protecting?
Thunderkick’s reputation rests on looking and behaving differently from the slot grid next to it. The art direction is hand-made and a little unhinged. The maths tends to follow the theme rather than a template.
Esqueleto Explosivo is the clearest example. The Day of the Dead skeletons, the cascading win feature and the escalating multiplier ladder made it a cult title long before Thunderkick had a large catalogue. According to PokerNews’ July 2024 review headline, the RTP is 96%. The sources I checked don’t confirm volatility or max win, so I won’t guess at either, and players should check the in-game help screen because operators can configure RTP variants.
The sequel, Esqueleto Explosivo 2, and Midas Golden Touch both have RTP, volatility and max win figures that are not confirmed in the research available for this piece. I’d rather say that than hand you a number I can’t source.
Thunderkick builds games that don’t read like a spreadsheet. A corporate parent likes spreadsheets.
The studio’s wider identity is easy to describe but hard to copy. It prefers odd feature structures to the standard free-spin trigger loop. It doesn’t chase headline max-win numbers the way NoLimit City does. And it keeps releasing at a measured pace, which is why its newer Norse, camping and Halloween releases still feel like Thunderkick and not a content treadmill.
What Do Past Acquisitions Tell Us?
The best local precedent is NetEnt. Evolution Gaming completed its NetEnt acquisition in 2020 and picked up Red Tiger in the same transaction. As SlotVault’s look at three years after the NetEnt acquisition found, the legacy catalogue survived intact. Dead or Alive 2, at a 96.8% RTP, high volatility and a 100,000x max win, still sits in lobbies. Blood Suckers, at 98.0% RTP and low volatility, does too.
What changed was the character of the new output. NetEnt leaned harder on variants and sequels, with Starburst XXXtreme (a higher-volatility spin on the original, RTP not confirmed in the research here) as the visible example, and protected its marquee IP over ground-up innovation. The games didn’t vanish. The appetite for risk did.
That’s the pattern Thunderkick fans should worry about. A studio built on risky, offbeat concepts is exactly the type that gets nudged toward sequels once it sits inside a larger portfolio. Thunderkick already has a sequel in Esqueleto Explosivo 2, so a franchise strategy is possible. It would be a different story if sequels became the only thing on the slate.
The alternative model is lighter-touch. Relax Gaming’s Silver Bullet programme gives outside studios a route to market without absorbing them, though Relax hasn’t published the commercial terms. A deal that looks like distribution rather than ownership would be the best case for Thunderkick’s independence.
Would an Acquisition Change Thunderkick’s RTP and Maths?
Not automatically. RTP is certified per game and per jurisdiction by independent testing labs, so a new owner can’t quietly rewrite a live slot’s return. Changing the maths means resubmitting for certification, and regulators in Sweden, Ontario and elsewhere would see it.
The softer risk is in how future games are designed. A new owner could push for tighter volatility bands, more familiar mechanics and standardised RTP settings across operators. That wouldn’t breach any rule, but it would sand off the quirks. You’d probably notice it in the first two or three post-deal releases, not in the existing library.
For Canadian players, availability would be the first thing to shift. Ontario’s regulated lobbies under AGCO and iGaming Ontario, and Alberta’s newly regulated market, reward suppliers with broad integrations. A buyer with an existing Canadian footprint could widen Thunderkick’s reach, which is a real upside for a studio that’s easy to miss among bigger names. Whether any specific title is live at a given operator depends on that operator, and I haven’t verified current Canadian availability game by game.
If a deal were announced, I’d watch whether the Stockholm team and its art direction stay intact, whether the release cadence holds or drifts toward sequels, whether the Relax Gaming arrangement continues, and whether certified RTP figures on existing games stay put. I built this piece from the studio’s own news feed, SlotVault’s published coverage of Thunderkick, NetEnt and Relax, and the trade reports listed below, and I’ll update it if a deal is confirmed. Remember to set a budget before you play and gamble responsibly. For support, visit ConnexOntario.ca or GameSense.com.
Frequently asked questions
Has Thunderkick been acquired? No acquisition is confirmed as of October 2026. No announcement or credible trade report turned up in the sources checked.
Who owns Thunderkick? Thunderkick’s homepage doesn’t state its ownership structure, and it couldn’t be confirmed from the available sources. The studio is based in Stockholm and distributes through a Relax Gaming Powered By partnership announced in September 2022.
Would a sale change the RTP of Esqueleto Explosivo? Not on its own. RTP is certified per game and jurisdiction, so any change would need fresh certification. PokerNews’ July 2024 review cites a 96% RTP, and operators can configure variants.
What happened to NetEnt’s catalogue after Evolution bought it? The legacy games stayed live, including Dead or Alive 2 and Blood Suckers. The shift was toward more variants and sequels rather than ground-up originals.
Key Takeaways
As of October 2026, no Thunderkick acquisition is confirmed, so the only honest read is conditional. Existing games and their certified RTPs are safe, but the studio’s willingness to ship odd, risky ideas is what a bigger owner would put under pressure. Judge any deal by the next three releases, not the press statement.
Sources
- Thunderkick official site, homepage news feed (thunderkick.com), accessed October 2026
- European Gaming, “Thunderkick granted newly installed Swedish supplier licence,” 29 March 2023
- European Gaming, Thunderkick partnership coverage including Italy (9 October 2024), Relum (11 March 2024) and Latin America hire (11 September 2024)
- iGamingFuture, “Relax Gaming Announces Thunderkick as Latest Powered By Studio Partner,” 27 September 2022
- PokerNews, “Esqueleto Explosivo Slot Review,” 31 July 2024
- SlotVault.io, coverage of Thunderkick’s Swedish licence, the NetEnt acquisition and Relax Gaming’s Silver Bullet programme
