The company was founded in 1991 by Paweł Marchewka. Marchewka, born in 1973 in
Ostrów Wielkopolski, displayed an interest in video games since his early childhood. In his final years of high school, together with his friends, he started distributing video games to different shops across Poland. The endeavour was successful enough that, in 1991, when Poland introduced changes to its intellectual property laws, he pivoted to officially founding Techland. Initially, the company focused on translating foreign programs and publishing them on the Polish market. In 1993, Techland began producing its own software: Dictionaries, translators, computer-games. Techland started as a distributor of computer software and created
Prawo Krwi, the first game developed in-house, in 1995. Techland released the sci-fi-themed first-person-shooter
Chrome in 2003. A prequel titled
Chrome: Specforce was released in 2005. Techland has also developed driving games including rally simulation games
Xpand Rally and
Xpand Rally Xtreme and
Volkswagen-licensed
GTI-Racing (2006). In 2011, Techland released open world survival horror game
Dead Island. Its sequel,
Dead Island: Riptide appeared in 2013. In August 2013, the company launched a branch in
Vancouver,
Canada, under the name Digital Scapes Studios. In 2015, Techland released
Dying Light, a first-person survival horror game for the
PlayStation 4,
Xbox One, and
Microsoft Windows. An expansion for the game,
Dying Light: The Following, was released in 2016. Techland's first title as a game publisher was
Torment: Tides of Numenera, released in 2017. In 2018,
Call of Juarez: The Cartel and
Call of Juarez: Gunslinger were both delisted from
Steam,
Xbox Live, and
PlayStation Network citing a publishing dispute with
Ubisoft.
Call of Juarez: Gunslinger returned to those storefronts in April 2018 with Techland as the sole publisher. In July 2021 Techland sold Digital Scapes Studios to
CD Projekt, another Polish developer, who proceeded to rename it to CD Projekt Red Vancouver. They also celebrated the company's 30th anniversary that December with a series of discounts for its clients. In 2022, Techland released the open world survival horror game
Dying Light 2: Stay Human, a sequel to
Dying Light. In July 2023,
Tencent announced that it would become the company's majority shareholder. Despite acquiring a 67% stake in the company for a reported US$1.6 billion, the Polish developer is to maintain creative independence and control over its brands. On January 10, 2024, it was reported that Tencent had completed the acquisition of a controlling stake in Techland. == Technology ==