Reigns and Card Shark developer Nerial shuts down, entire team laid off

Nerial has announced it is shutting down, or as the studio describes it, "entering hibernation mode". The closure follows discussions with parent company Devolver Digital and affects the entire team.

CEO Tamara Alliot and creative director François Alliot shared the news in a joint letter on social media. "We have decided together with our partners at Devolver to end development at the studio," they wrote. The founders did not detail specific reasons for the closure beyond citing a need for change after 13 years leading the studio.

"While this marks the end of Nerial as we know it, it's not the end of game dev for us," the Alliots said. "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."

François Alliot indicated on LinkedIn that he is going "back to being pure indie". Tamara Alliot published a list of affected staff members on the same platform, naming seven team members and encouraging others to hire them: 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), and AJ Kerr (Senior Producer).

Nerial developed Reigns, a strategy game played by swiping left or right, as well as Card Shark, a period puzzle game focused on card-cheating mechanics, and The Crush House, a game examining surveillance systems and content creation. The closure may reflect broader industry challenges. In August, Devolver Digital's leadership told shareholders they wanted to cease trading on the London Stock Exchange, citing an industry-wide "period of significant disruption and volatility" and "several impairments of underperforming titles amid an increasingly competitive and unpredictable market environment".