Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) and Silver Lake, two of the three buyers that took Electronic Arts private this summer, have held talks about buying Unity Software, the company behind the Unity game engine, Reuters reports. This is a report, not an announced deal: Insider Gaming describes the talks as preliminary and says a valuation of around $25 billion has been discussed, while Unity has been “evaluating its options.”
Unity’s own news page carried no statement about the talks when we checked on November 6 at about 08:35 UTC.
Table of Contents
What the Unity takeover report says
- Who: PIF and Silver Lake, according to Reuters as cited by PC Gamer and Insider Gaming. Affinity Partners, the third EA buyer, is not named in the reports.
- Price talk: a valuation of about $25 billion, per both outlets.
- Existing stake: Silver Lake already owns roughly 8% of Unity, from an investment of around $400 million in 2017, PC Gamer says.
- Board conflict: Silver Lake chief Egon Durban sits on Unity’s board. Reuters notes that this dual role would typically lead him to recuse himself from board talks about a sale.
- Market reaction: Unity’s shares rose almost 15% on the report, according to Insider Gaming.
Unity Spark, the creation tool Unity is building with Google for its Playground platform. Image: Unity
Why now: Unity’s best quarter in years
The report arrived alongside Unity’s third-quarter 2026 results, which the company had scheduled for before the market opened on November 5. Reuters, quoted by PC Gamer, says strong growth in Vector, Unity’s AI-driven advertising platform, helped it post its first quarterly profit on a GAAP basis since it went public in September 2020. PC Gamer adds that profits came in higher than estimated, and that the $25 billion figure was discussed before those results were out.
So a buyer is now looking at a growing ad business, two years after Unity scrapped the Runtime Fee that angered developers.
The EA deal as a template
The same investors closed their purchase of EA on August 4, 2026, EA says. The deal was first announced on September 29, 2025, approved by EA stockholders on December 22, 2025, and paid shareholders $210 in cash per share, taking EA’s stock off NASDAQ. Outlets put its value at $55 billion. At the close, Durban said the buyers would “invest heavily in EA’s growth, including what AI can do to enhance game development and player experience.”
What followed is why the Unity report is getting attention. On October 21, EA told staff it was closing BioWare and its Edmonton office, dropping early work on the next Mass Effect, bringing Respawn and DICE together on a future project, and pausing The Sims “Project Lotus.” We covered that in EA Is Closing BioWare and Cancelling the Next Mass Effect and what EA confirmed about Respawn and DICE. PC Gamer also points to layoffs and $18 billion of debt at EA after the buyout.
EA called Battlefield 6 a great success in its October 21 note to staff, which also announced the BioWare closure. Image: Electronic Arts
What a Unity sale would mean for developers
EA owns games. Unity makes the tools that many other studios build their games with. Insider Gaming lists Genshin Impact, Pokémon GO, Escape from Tarkov, Rust, Call of Duty: Mobile and Hearthstone among the games built on Unity. A change of owner would put any future pricing and licensing decisions in new hands.
Three of Unity’s own commitments are the ones to watch:
- Pricing. When Unity cancelled the Runtime Fee on September 12, 2024, it went back to seat-based plans: Unity Personal stays free up to $200,000 in revenue and funding, Unity Pro costs $2,200 per seat a year, and Unity said it would consider price increases only once a year.
- Version terms. In the same post, Unity said that if it changes the Editor’s terms in a way that affects developers, they can keep using their current version under the old terms.
- The roadmap. Unity 7 is due in early beta in December, with full release in the first quarter of 2027. Unity promises an upgrade from Unity 6 with no rebuilding. Unity is also building Unity Spark with Google, a creation tool for Google’s prompt-based Playground platform.
Unity Pro customers and studios planning a move to Unity 7 have the most at stake, because their costs and upgrade plans depend on those promises.
What’s next
Nothing is agreed. Any deal would need sign-off from Unity’s board and shareholders, just as EA’s stockholders voted on theirs in December 2025, and it would be announced by Unity itself. We will update this story if Unity, PIF or Silver Lake comment, and follow the day’s other news on our live page.
Sources: Reuters report as cited by PC Gamer and Insider Gaming; EA (Aug 4, 2026); EA (Oct 21, 2026); Unity news releases (Q3 date, Unity 7, Google partnership) and the Unity blog.
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Featured image: Unity
