Spiders Studio shuts down as Nacon's financial collapse claims its first victim
Spiders, the Paris-based studio behind cult RPGs GreedFall and Steelrising, has been officially liquidated — the first studio closure to fall directly from Nacon's ongoing financial meltdown. All 75 employees have been laid off with immediate effect. The closure matters beyond one studio: it exposes just how fragile mid-tier European game development becomes when a publisher's finances unravel.
The collapse
The chain of events started in February 2026, when Bigben Interactive — Nacon's majority shareholder — defaulted on a €43 million bond repayment. That triggered insolvency proceedings at Nacon itself, and Spiders along with fellow Nacon studios Cyanide and Kylotonn filed for court protection in March. A French commercial court placed Spiders under redressement judiciaire — a creditor-protection process that gave roughly eight weeks to find a buyer or a viable restructuring plan. Neither materialized. On April 29, the studio confirmed liquidation in a post on X.
"The company no longer exists," the statement read. "We will immediately cease all activity." The promised DLC for GreedFall: The Dying World will still be released — but by Nacon, not by the studio that made it.
The numbers that sealed the fate
Spiders was founded in 2008 by former Monte Cristo Multimedia staff, led by writer Jehanne Rousseau. Its biggest hit, GreedFall (2019), sold over two million copies and earned the studio a genuine fanbase for its mid-budget, choice-driven RPGs. That success brought Nacon's backing — and ultimately its dependency.
The sequel, GreedFall: The Dying World, left early access in March 2026 to a cold reception. It barely crossed 1,000 concurrent players on Steam at launch, compared to around 16,000 for the original. That commercial collapse, per Kotaku, made Spiders an unattractive acquisition target even as Nacon's legal team hunted for buyers.
What it means for AA games in Europe
France's games industry union STJV had already called out Nacon's leadership in March, accusing management of imposing AI tools without strategy and mishandling otherwise viable studios. PC Gamer noted that Spiders' fate fits a broader pattern: mid-tier studios that survive on publisher deals have little insulation when that publisher's parent stumbles.
The studio's Discord server has been handed to the community. For support on any Spiders game going forward, Nacon is the only point of contact — the people who built them are gone.