Reigns and Card Shark developer Nerial has announced its closure as it enters “hibernation mode.”
In a statement on social media, studio founders CEO Tamara Alliot and creative director François Alliot said that “after 13 years and 11 published games, we have decided together with our partners at Devolver to end development and the studio.”
Devolver acquired Nerial in 2021. Last year, the team was reduced by 40% to “address issues around recent releases and to better shape the team for future releases.”
François told Kotaku that Devolver will retain the rights to Nerial’s existing catalogue, and emphasised that they remain “very good friends.”
“Having been bought by Devolver, you become an internal studio, so that means each of our games needs to be a Devolver game,” he noted. “And Devolver needs to publish all Nerial games, which it did match very well for Reigns, it did match very well for Card Shark, for example. So there is this common ground and we would have found a way.”
“But it’s like, every time we have to think about what the other wants. And there’s a bit of a second-guessing. I recognise this situation, where you lose a bit of the concentrated energy that you had as a pure indie. And I want to get back to that in some way… it might work, might not work, but it doesn’t involve so many people.”
Games journalist Chris Kerr noted that a recent Companies House fiscal report indicated the studio experienced two years of “significant trading losses” and had become “dependent” on financial support from Devolver. Nerial lost over £800,000 in 2025 and nearly £1 million in 2024.
Nerial has nine employees, including its founders. Tamara and François stated they plan to continue making games and “return to [their] roots,” but will first “take a break and reflect on everything that’s happened, before coming back with a new perspective.”
“The fabulous Nerial team will now seek new opportunities and we wholeheartedly recommend each and every one to any potential studios that will be lucky enough to have them.”
François told Kotaku that “he hopes to be able to continue to work with them as contractors in the future, but isn’t currently in a position to retain them as salaried employees”
“We also want to thank the many amazing people we’ve teamed up with, both inside the studio, at Devolver, and through ad hoc collaborations. Each of our projects was only possible through such impossible, fleeting conjunctions of talent and passion.”
François said that he needed to “step back and rethink what I want to do with my indie career.”
“It’s become a bit difficult to push forward, especially with the current context, with post-COVID, there’s a bit of this crash in the video game industry that everyone knows. AI sucking out all the air from the room. So we are rebuilding, trying to rebuild strong roots. And for that, I need to take a step back.”