Reigns Studio Nerial Shuts Down After 13 Years
Nerial, the London studio behind the Reigns series, has ended development after 13 years and 11 published games, closing in agreement with publisher Devolver Digital. UK filings show losses of nearly £1 million in 2024 and more than £800,000 in 2025. The announcement itself was gentle. Founders Tamara and François Alliot described it as "hibernation mode" and framed the decision as one made together with their partners at Devolver. The paperwork is less gentle. Two straight years of losses, a 40 percent staff cut in April 2025, and a nine-person team that has now dissolved entirely, founders included . François Alliot told Kotaku that life after the 2021 acquisition brought second-guessing and cost the team its pure indie focus.
The numbers in the shutdown notice
Nerial was founded in London in 2013 and acquired by Devolver in 2021. By the end it had shipped 11 games, the last being Reigns: The Witcher in 2026.
| Figure | What it means | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Nearly £1m | Losses in 2024 | Companies House filing |
| Over £800k | Losses in 2025 | Companies House filing |
| 40% | Staff cut in April 2025 | Public reporting |
| 9 people | Team size before shutdown, all let go | Studio statement |
| $20m+ | Revenue across five Reigns titles | Devolver materials |
The statement also published the names of seven affected staff so other studios could hire them, including narrative writer Oscar Harrington-Shaw, art director Helen O'Dell and lead programmer Neil Goodman, plus programming, QA and production roles.
One swipe mechanic carried 13 years
It started as a Tinder clone, on purpose
Reigns reduces decision-making to a card: swipe left for no, swipe right for yes. The interaction was lifted straight from the dating app Tinder. The first game broke out, sequels and spin-offs followed, and licensed runs with Game of Thrones in 2018 and The Witcher in 2026 kept the format alive.
A decent run by any small-studio standard
Thirteen years, 11 games, more than $20 million in revenue across the Reigns franchise. For a nine-person team, that is not a bad record. The problem was structural: once the studio became a small cell inside a larger company, two consecutive loss-making years turned it into a line item to be resolved.
Inside the "washing machine" the founders describe
François Alliot used a vivid image for today's market: a washing machine spinning too fast to allow deliberate creation. He named two things — original ideas getting copied within days, and AI tools flooding Steam with clones .
Those two problems hurt in different ways. Getting copied takes your topic, not your execution. AI-generated volume dilutes discovery directly. When 50 competing games become 500, better quality does not guarantee anyone finds you.
The second-guessing that followed the acquisition
Alliot told Kotaku that after Devolver acquired the studio in 2021, second-guessing crept in and the team lost its pure indie focus. He describes his next chapter as going back to "being pure indie".
That line is worth pausing on. Of the studios Devolver acquired in that period, Nerial is the first to fall. The acquisition brought resources and an obligation to answer for parent-company results — the April 2025 layoff was justified as addressing "issues around recent releases", not as anything the studio wanted to do.
Nerial is not an isolated case
Zoom out and Nerial is one link in a chain. Devolver's headcount fell from 303 to around 270. In August the publisher told shareholders it intended to delist from the London Stock Exchange, citing a period of "significant disruption and volatility" in games and "several impairments of underperforming titles".
When a company best known for publishing weird, distinctive indie games is contracting, the pressure is not about one title.
My take: the way indie studios die has changed
The old way a small studio died was simple: one game failed and the money ran out. That is not this story. Nerial had a hit, licensed spin-offs, a parent company for support, and a final release that reviewed well.
It died somewhere more structural. After the acquisition, it went from answering to its games to answering to a spreadsheet. Games can take their time; spreadsheets cannot. When the whole industry contracts and the parent is delisting itself, the smallest and least quantifiable creative unit tends to get cut first.
For players, that means fewer oddities like Reigns can reach the market. Not because nobody wants to make them, but because the layer of companies willing to fund them is thinning out. We keep track of studio news like this at gghubs.com.
Did you play Reigns or Card Shark? Do you think small, strange games are getting harder to find? Let us know in the comments.
FAQ
Why did Nerial shut down?
The immediate cause was two consecutive loss-making years: UK filings show losses of nearly £1 million in 2024 and over £800,000 in 2025. The founders said they decided with publisher Devolver Digital to end development and enter "hibernation mode".
What games did Nerial make?
The Reigns series, including the 2018 Game of Thrones spin-off and the 2026 Witcher spin-off, plus Card Shark and The Crush House. The studio shipped 11 titles over 13 years.
How much did the Reigns series earn?
According to Devolver materials, five Reigns titles generated more than $20 million in revenue. That is a solid number, but not enough to absorb two years of losses.
What happens to the founders and staff now?
Tamara and François Alliot said they are returning to "pure indie" after a break. The nine-person team was dissolved, and seven named staff were publicly recommended for hiring, including art director Helen O'Dell and lead programmer Neil Goodman.