1C Company, the leading Eastern and Central European publisher, is pleased to announce that it has acquired Akella's "Sea Dog" in-house development studio.

The Sea Dog team is comprised of experienced developers who contributed to the creation of such hits as Sea Dogs, Pirates of the Caribbean and Age of Pirates: Caribbean Tales. Within Akella, this development studio has become one of the few Russian teams successfully developing games for the Xbox and Xbox 360.

The team is currently working on the Age of Pirates: Captain Blood project that will be released on PC and Xbox 360. The acquisition of Akella's development studio is another step to build upon 1C's status as a leading developer and publisher of entertainment software.

Once the current project is completed, 1C's newly acquired studio will develop a wide range of innovative titles for multiple platforms. According to the agreement between 1C and Akella, Akella has acquired the worldwide publishing rights to PT Boats: Knights of the Sea.

PT Boats: Knights of the Sea is a breakthrough action simulation featuring torpedo boats in World War II. Akella was previously developing the title when 1C was a co-publisher and investor. This title has approached a closing stage of its development and has recently been successfully presented at NVIDIA's Editor's Day as a next-gen technology product. It will become the first Russian title to be released in both DirectX 9 and DirectX 10. PT Boats: Knights of the Sea makes a successful contribution to keeping Akella's traditions as a leading naval game developer alive. It is destined to become one more hit in Akella's top lineup of products.

The successful series of pirates titles will be continued by another of Akella's studios and a new announcement will follow shortly.