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The staff reportedly tried to spin out the company into an independent entity, but negotiations broke down.
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Annapurna Interactive, the game company famous for publishing indie hits like Stray, Outer Wilds, Gorogoa, Neon White, What Remains of Edith Finch, and many more, may not be the same company anymore.
Bloomberg’s reports that the entire staff of Annapurna Interactive, the gaming division of Megan Ellison’s Annapurna, has resigned after failing to convince Ellison to let them spin off its games division into a new company. IGN is corroborating the report.
Former president Nathan Gary, Annapurna Interactive executives, and “around two dozen” staffers have resigned, Bloomberg reports. An Annapurna spokesperson told Bloomberg that existing games and projects will remain under the company. Annapurna didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment from The Verge.
Last week, The Hollywood Reporter said that Gary and the co-heads of Annapurna Interactive, Deborah Mars and Nathan Vella, would be leaving. THR also reported that Annapurna planned to “integrate its in-house gaming operations with the rest of Annapurna’s divisions, which include film, TV and theater.” Hector Sanchez, who most recently headed up the Unreal Engine games business at Epic Gamesand is an Annapurna Interactive co-founder, announced last month that he would be president of interactive and new media at Annapurna.
Annapurna Pictures, the company’s film arm, has won countless awards for a variety of films, including Her, American Hustle, and Zero Dark Thirty, and the company had only been expanding its ambitions alongside its video game publishing hot streak.
In 2020, Annapurna announced that it would begin developing its own games too; it launched an in-house animation division in 2022, one that soon announced a movie based on Stray. Annapurna Pictures produced the excellent animated film Nimona for Netflix, and it just last month partnered with Remedy Entertainment to begin exploring film and TV adaptations of Control and Alan Wake.
This year, Annapurna Interactive published Lorelei and the Laser Eyes and Open Roads; upcoming games include its own developed Blade Runner 2033: Labyrinth as well as Ghost Bike and Wanderstop.