Saber Interactive was founded in 2001 by Andrey Iones, Matthew Karch, and Anton Krupkin. Together they created a 3D engine from scratch, gathered a team of artists from Saint Petersburg, Russia, and began working on its first game, Will Rock. After the release of Will Rock, Saber developed its proprietary game engine, Saber3D, which was used in its second title, TimeShift (2007). The Saber3D engine has since been continuously updated and evolved for use in current games.
In 2010, Saber was approached by Microsoft's 343 Industries to remake Halo: Combat Evolved for the game's tenth anniversary. This would be Saber's first involvement in a major franchise and COO Andrey Iones considered it "an opportunity that we couldn't miss". To maintain the original game experience, Saber used the original engine for game play and the Saber3D engine for visuals. Halo Combat Evolved Anniversary was released on November 15, 2011, to positive reviews. Saber then assisted in 2014 on the development of Halo: The Master Chief Collection.
On August 1, 2016, Saber Interactive opened its first internal studio outside of Russia in Madrid. This was the beginning of a major international expansion, with Saber opening studios in Sundsvall, Sweden (by buying porting studio Binary Motion), and Minsk, Belarus.
CD Projekt Red partnered with Saber in 2018 on the Nintendo Switch port of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt — Complete Edition. The port was released on October 15, 2019, to positive reviews highlighting the performance and playability.
On April 16, 2019, Saber launched World War Z. The game sold over one million units in its first week of release.
id Software studio director Tim Willits joined Saber as chief creative officer on August 1, 2019.
In October 2019, Saber Interactive acquired Bigmoon Entertainment, a game development studio of forty people based in Porto, Portugal, and rebranded the studio as Saber Porto.
Saber was acquired by Embracer Group in February 2020 in a deal worth US$525 million. Under the deal, Saber became the fifth direct subsidiary under Embracer and maintains autonomy. Post-acquisition, Matthew Karch continues to serve as chief executive officer and Andrey Iones as chief operating officer. After joining Embracer, Saber became a platform for future acquisitions of other studios.
In August 2020, Saber Interactive acquired 4A Games, the developers behind the Metro video game series and New World Interactive, the developers of Insurgency: Sandstorm. In November 2020, Saber Interactive acquired 34BigThings, Mad Head Games, Nimble Giant Entertainment, Snapshot Games and Zen Studios. Former President and CEO of id Software, Todd Hollenshead, joined Saber as Head of Publishing on November 18, 2020.