What Happened to Spiders Studio? GreedFall Maker Shut Down

Spiders Studio, the French developer behind GreedFall and Steelrising, was liquidated on 29 April 2026. The Paris team confirmed the decision on social media, saying the company “no longer exists” and that it would cease functions immediately. It had released its final game just under seven weeks earlier.

What Spiders Said When It Closed

The studio broke the news itself, in a short post rather than a corporate statement. “After a long period without clear answers, we have received confirmation that Spiders is being liquidated,” it wrote. “This means the company as a whole no longer exists. We’ll cease our functions immediately.”

The post also redirected players. Anyone with a problem in one of the studio’s games was told to contact the publisher, Nacon, because Spiders would no longer be able to reply.

On the fate of the work still in progress, the studio was blunt. The planned downloadable content would come out through Nacon, it said, “and then, well, that’s it.”

According to figures published on the studio’s own website, Spiders employed more than 90 people, alongside freelancers and writers. It had been operating for 18 years.

Why a Studio Weeks Past a Launch Ran Out of Time

The closure was not caused by the game underperforming, or at least not directly. The sequence was financial, and it started above the studio.

GreedFall 2: The Dying World left early access and launched in version 1.0 on PC on 10 March 2026, arriving on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series consoles two days later and in Japan on 19 March. The game had spent roughly 18 months in early access after entering it in September 2024.

By the time it launched, its owner was already in trouble. Nacon had filed for insolvency on 25 February 2026, two weeks before the console release, and the search for a buyer for Spiders ran out without one.

That is the awkward shape of this story. A studio can ship the biggest project of its recent history and still be dissolved seven weeks later, because the thing that failed was the balance sheet of its parent company.

The reception did not help. GreedFall 2: The Dying World drew mixed notices, scoring 63 out of 100 on PC, 65 on PlayStation 5 and 68 on Xbox Series consoles at review aggregator Metacritic, with only a small minority of critics recommending it outright on OpenCritic.

Reviewers tended to praise the writing, the companions and the choices on offer while criticising the combat and the technical state of the console versions. The switch during early access from the first game’s action combat towards a more tactical system divided the audience it was meant to win over.

What Spiders Actually Made

Spiders was founded in Paris in 2008 by developers who had previously worked at Monte Cristo, and was led for most of its life by co-founder Jehanne Rousseau. She stepped down as chief executive in late 2024, handing the role to Anne Devouassoux, and remained attached to the studio’s final projects.

The studio built a reputation for ambitious role-playing games made on modest budgets, a style that earned the affectionate label “eurojank” from players who valued imagination and scope over polish.

GreedFall was the breakout. Released in 2019, its colonial-era setting and faction politics gave the studio its widest audience and made the name recognisable well beyond France.

Bigben Interactive, which later renamed itself Nacon, acquired Spiders in July 2019, weeks before GreedFall reached shops. The studio spent its final seven years inside that group.

Can You Still Play GreedFall and Steelrising?

Yes. As of 26 August 2026, GreedFall, GreedFall 2: The Dying World, Steelrising and the studio’s older titles remain on sale through the usual digital stores and continue to run.

These are single-player games, which is the reason the closure did not switch anything off. There are no studio-run servers to shut down, so a liquidation removes future updates rather than access to what players already own.

What has gone is the repair crew. No team remains to fix bugs, add compatibility for future hardware, or answer a support ticket, and Nacon holds the publishing rights rather than a development staff that knows the code.

Existing digital libraries and physical console copies are unaffected by the dissolution. Because publishing rights sit with Nacon, any future decision about whether the catalogue stays listed on storefronts rests with the publisher rather than with a studio that no longer exists.

What Happened to the Final DLC

It shipped, and it shipped strangely. Peren’s Black Mass, the last add-on for GreedFall 2: The Dying World, was released about a week after the studio confirmed its own liquidation.

It arrived roughly ten days ahead of its advertised date. It had been listed as paid content at 9.99 euros for a 14 May release, and instead went out free as part of an update, reaching PlayStation 5, Xbox Series consoles and PC through Steam.

The content itself adds a quest involving forbidden rituals in the region of Peren. Players then hit a problem that says everything about the circumstances: many could not work out how to trigger the quest, and there was no development team left to explain it.

That is the practical legacy of a studio dissolving mid-flight. The work reached players, but the people who could describe how it functions had already been let go.

How Nacon’s Collapse Reached the Studio

Nacon filed for insolvency on 25 February 2026, asking the Commercial Court of Lille Metropole to open judicial reorganisation proceedings, the French process known as redressement judiciaire. The company said its available assets did not allow it to meet its liabilities as they fell due.

The cause sat one level higher again. Nacon’s majority shareholder, Bigben Interactive, had been unable to make a partial repayment on a bond loan after what the company described as a late and unexpected refusal by its banking pool, and the shock passed straight down to the subsidiary.

Trading in Nacon shares had already been suspended on 20 February 2026, five days before the filing. Several studios in the group then entered their own proceedings in March 2026, with industry reporting naming Spiders, Kylotonn and Cyanide among them.

Studio closures have become a familiar feature of the industry over the past few years, though the business has absorbed far heavier shocks before, including the video game crash of 1983.

Did Other Nacon Studios Survive?

Not all of them. Spiders was the first liquidation in the group, and it was not the last.

Midgar Studio, the developer of Edge of Eternity, was ordered into liquidation after no buyer emerged. Founder Jeremy Zeler-Maury announced the closure on 20 July 2026, close to three months after Spiders went. Nacon had bought the studio in 2022.

Its unreleased project, Edge of Memories, was still reported as heading for release despite the studio’s dissolution, an arrangement that mirrors what happened with the final GreedFall add-on.

Kylotonn, the racing specialist in the group, took a different route and was restructured rather than liquidated. Its position has been complicated by a deal to bring the WRC racing licence back from 2027, agreed before the insolvency filings and now dependent on how the proceedings conclude.

The pattern across the group was consistent. Where a buyer or a restructuring could be arranged, a studio survived in reduced form; where no buyer emerged, the courts ordered liquidation and the team was dispersed within weeks of the ruling.

What Became of the Spiders Team?

No successor studio has been publicly announced. As of 26 August 2026, there is no reported new company formed by the Spiders team, and the staff appear to have dispersed into the wider French development scene rather than regrouping under one banner.

That silence is itself worth noting. When a well-liked studio closes, a founder-led revival is common enough that its absence months later suggests the team scattered rather than reassembled.

The timing was unkind. Spiders closed in a period when French and European studios were shedding staff broadly, which left dozens of experienced role-playing developers looking for work in a market with fewer openings than usual.

Where the Parent Company Stands Now

Bigben Interactive reached an agreement in principle with its main financial creditors on 4 August 2026. Backing came from holders of about 67.6 percent of the senior bonds exchangeable into Nacon shares, a class worth roughly 59.4 million euros, and from four of the five banks in its lending pool.

The company simultaneously asked the Commercial Court of Lille Metropole to open accelerated safeguard proceedings, a fast-track French restructuring procedure that runs for two months and can be extended by a further two. The court issued the opening judgment on 17 August 2026.

Bigben has stressed that the procedure covers its financial debt only and does not affect its relationships with suppliers and other operational partners. The plan converts creditor claims into equity and new instruments, which is expected to dilute existing shareholders heavily.

Nacon has kept publishing throughout. Judicial reorganisation in France is built to let a business carry on trading while it reorganises its debts, which is why the publisher’s games stayed on sale even as individual studios inside the group were wound up.

For Spiders, none of this changes anything. The restructuring is aimed at keeping the group alive, and the studio was already dissolved four months before the agreement was reached.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why Did Spiders Shut Down?

Spiders was liquidated because its parent company ran out of money. Nacon filed for insolvency on 25 February 2026 after majority shareholder Bigben Interactive failed to make a bond repayment, and no buyer was found for the studio before the courts confirmed liquidation on 29 April 2026.

Is GreedFall 2 Still Playable?

Yes. GreedFall 2: The Dying World is a single-player game with no studio-run servers, so it remains on sale and fully playable. It will not receive further updates now that the development team has gone.

Did the Final GreedFall DLC Ever Release?

Yes. Peren’s Black Mass came out about a week after the liquidation was confirmed, roughly ten days earlier than planned, and was given away free rather than sold at the 9.99 euros originally listed.

Who Owns the GreedFall Series Now?

Publisher Nacon holds the rights. No sequel has been announced, and with the development studio dissolved there is no team attached to the series.

How Many People Worked at Spiders?

The studio’s website listed more than 90 staff, plus freelancers and writers. Spiders had operated for 18 years after being founded in Paris in 2008.

Is Nacon Out of Business?

No. Nacon entered judicial reorganisation in February 2026 and continues to operate as a publisher, while its parent Bigben Interactive entered accelerated safeguard proceedings on 17 August 2026 to restructure its debt.