Despite the implosion of Annapurna Interactive—whose entire staff quit earlier this week—the recent deal its parent company, Annapurna Pictures, made with Alan Wake developer Remedy Entertainment will remain intact, according to the studio’s communications director Thomas Puha.
Annapurna Pictures, not Annapurna Interactive, signed a deal with Remedy to co-fund the development of Control 2 and to gain the rights to adapt Control and Alan Wake for film and television. The partnership was only announced a few weeks ago, which sparked questions about its status when the Hollywood Reporter and Bloomberg reported that the senior leadership team and all 25 employees of the video game publishing arm of the company had left.
But as Bloomberg reporter Jason Schreier and Remedy’s Puha clarified on X, the deal was always tied to Annapurna Pictures, not Annapurna Interactive, and hasn’t been affected. Puha said Remedy is self-publishing Control 2.
As for the games Annapurna Interactive is publishing, it doesn’t look like the mass employee exodus is necessarily going to stop them from releasing on time. Several developers have confirmed that their games are still on track to release normally, including Ivy Road’s Wanderstop, Great Ape Games’ The Lost Wilds, and Matt Newell’s Lushfoil Photography Sim. “[You] can assume at this stage that Lushfoil Photography Sim will be unaffected, given that the game itself is mostly complete,” Newell wrote on X.
“Our top priority is continuing to support our developer and publishing partners during this transition,” Annapurna owner and founder Megan Ellison said in a statement to Bloomberg. The publisher, which started in 2016, rose in popularity after publishing several popular games like Outer Wilds, What Remains of Edith Finch, and Stray. It has over 10 announced games set to release this year and beyond.
Annapurna Interactive president and co-founder Nathan Gary left along with the rest of the executive staff after negotiations with Ellison to make the games division its own company fell through. Gary has been replaced by another co-founder, Hector Sanchez, who took on the role last month after returning from Epic Games.
The future of Annapurna Interactive is unclear. If it’s going to provide the publishing support it’s promised its partners, it’ll have to hire an entirely new staff, which at the very least will be disruptive to developers who’ve spent potentially years working with the old staff. I hope things go well, but the effects of this news might take a while to fully shake out.