EA's thumbs up from the European Commission, the $55 billion leveraged buyout by Saudi Arabia, Silver Lake and Jared Kushner-founded investment firm Affinity Partners has gone through. With the publishers now privately owned and saddled with a bunch of debt, questions loom about what their future will look like. The CEO of Helldivers 2 studio Arrowhead, Shams Jorjani, hopes the answer won't be EA narrowing further into "a sequel-and-mega-franchise machine". According to Bloomberg, the company have taken on $18 billion in debt as part of the takeover. "EA's annual Ebitda [Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, and Amortisation] is around $1.5 billion, which should be enough to service the interest payments.