6 weeks after releasing Greedfall: The Dying World, famed eurojank studio Spiders is closing

Greedfall: The Dying World screen — (Image credit: Spiders)

Less than two months after the 1.0 release of Greedfall: The Dying World, French RPG studio Spiders is closing its doors. The surprise shutdown is fallout from the financial troubles of parent company Nacon, which filed for insolvency in February after its majority shareholder, Bigben Interactive, was unable to meet its own financial obligations.

The Spiders closure, first reported by French site Origami (Google translated), was confirmed by the studio today on Discord.

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The DLC planned for Greedfall: The Dying World will still be released by Nacon, Eleanor said, while the Spiders Discord will be handed over to the community. "And then—well, that's it."

The Origami report says Nacon had hoped to sell off both Spiders and Nacon Tech, two of its four subsidiaries—all of which have also filed for insolvency, downstream from Nacon's issues—in order to generate the cash needed to resolve its insolvency problem. But it was unable to find a buyer, and with that effort having fallen through, liquidation was the only remaining option.

First off, we apologise for the silence over the past month - it's been a while. I'm going to cut straight to the chase so you're not left wondering: After a long period without clear answers, we have received confirmation that Spiders is being liquidated. What does it mean? This means the company as a whole no longer exists. We'll cease our functions immediately and will hand over this server to you, the community. The planned DLC will release via Nacon, and then-- well, that's it. Following this, we have named new admins to the server: @Damsel of Distress, @Urdnot Wrecks, and @Master-Kankuro. Please treat them kindly. We're sorry that it's come to this and would like to thank each and every one of you for your support over the years. If you have any questions or run into issues with your games, please contact Nacon directly as we'll no longer be able to reply. — (Image credit: Spiders (Discord))

The studio's latest release, Greedfall: The Dying World, was unfortunately something of a stumble: Spiders followed the early access trail blazed by Larian with Baldur's Gate 3 but had a much rougher time of it, and even though the final result was vastly improved, Shaun said it still felt a little undercooked.

That in itself probably wasn't a fatal blow: The lower stakes of Spiders' double-A games insulated it from the existential do-or-die faced by big budget studios like, say, BioWare. But the game industry has been decimated over the past few years by pressures including gross Covid mismanagement and a headlong embrace of AI, which means that where once Spiders may have been quickly snapped up by the likes of Embracer or Focus Home, it will now simply pass into memory: Another studio gone because the money guys biffed it.

PRODUCTS

Andy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning, starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80. From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims, ran a local BBS, learned how to build PCs, and developed a longstanding love of RPGs, immersive sims, and shooters. He began writing videogame news in 2007 for The Escapist and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until 2014, when he joined the storied ranks of PC Gamer. He covers all aspects of the industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports, and Henry Cavill. Lots of Henry Cavill.