THQ hands Devil's Third back to Valhalla

Publisher THQ has confirmed that it has transferred the IP rights for Tomonobu Itagaki's Devil's Third back to his Valhalla Game Studios.

"THQ confirms that the company will not be publishing Devil's Third," it told Eurogamer.

"All of the game's IP rights have been returned to Itagaki-san and the Valhalla team."

THQ dropped the action title in May, and said at the time that the "profitability profile of Devil's Third no longer meets our internal threshold."

Itagaki, best known for creating Ninja Gaiden and the CTO of Valhalla also spoke to Japanese magazine Famitsu about the return of the rights to the game, and praised ex-THQ core games head Danny Bilson.

"Most important thing is gamers' happiness. And people in business side like distributers and presses. And developers. It's a Happy Three. So we can't thank THQ enough. Anyway, we now own the Devil's Third IP," he said.

"Devil's Third development is in its final stage now, and is most expensive in this term. In the West, we need to spend a great deal for advertisements - as much as development cost - to sell a lot. But it wasn't fit for [THQ's] mid-term plan. They didn't want to part with this IP, but we all have to see into the future and at last they did, for us."

"We were anguished and they were really kind to us. Mr. Danny Bilson was searching for a way to work together until the very end. I do appreciate him and THQ managers that signed the transfer contract."

THQ signed the deal for the game in June 2010.