Nerial, the studio behind Reigns and Card Shark, is ending development and laying off its staff, Rock Paper Shotgun reported. The studio described the step as entering "hibernation mode", and said the decision followed discussion with its parent company, Devolver Digital. Its released games also include The Crush House.
Chief executive Tamara Alliot and creative director François Alliot announced the closure in a joint letter posted to social media, writing that "we have decided together with our partners at Devolver to end development at the studio". The pair gave no detailed reasoning beyond saying they wanted a change after 13 years running the company.
While this marks the end of Nerial as we know it, it's not the end of game dev for us. We're going back to our roots. François' unrelenting drive to make games is as strong as ever, but first we need to take a break and reflect on everything that's happened, before coming back with a new perspective.
The staff affected
Writing on LinkedIn, Tamara Alliot named seven members of the team affected by the decision and asked other employers to hire them. She said the studio had "the best team in the world" and that it was "with great sadness that we are stopping now", while adding that the founders were keen to take time off. On his own LinkedIn page, François Alliot said he was going "back to being pure indie".
- Oscar Harrington-Shaw, narrative and writing
- Helen O'Dell, art direction
- Neil Goodman, lead programmer
- Gordon Speirs, programmer
- Ben Obikoya, senior programmer
- Neil Bull, QA lead
- AJ Kerr, senior producer
Devolver Digital's position
Rock Paper Shotgun reported that Devolver's leadership told shareholders in August that it wanted to stop trading on the London Stock Exchange, citing an industry-wide "period of significant disruption and volatility". The publisher said it had taken "several impairments of underperforming titles amid an increasingly competitive and unpredictable market environment".
