Former Annapurna staff reportedly found new studio to rescue sold-off Private Division projects, including new Game Freak game

rockpapershotgun.com:

In a fairly exciting case of two major industry stories meeting in the middle, former members of downfallen indie publisher Annapurna Interactive have reportedly joined forces to take control of several game projects previously published by Take-Two Interactive's label Private Division, which has itself been sold off amid layoffs. The game projects in question include the Kerbal Space Program series and an unannounced project from Pokémon developer Game Freak.

That's from a new Bloomberg article (paywall), helpfully summarised by Game Developer. To give you the backstory here, Annapurna Interactive are a division of fancy-dan auteur-driven media company Annapurna Pictures, known for films like Zero Dark Thirty and American Hustle. Founded in 2016, the Interactive label are the publishers of such acclaimed smaller game projects as Kentucky Route Zero, Outer Wilds, Sayonara Wild Hearts, and Neon White. Notwithstanding the critical success of these projects, there have long been tensions between Annapurna Pictures leadership and the gaming division. The entire staff of Annapurna Interactive resigned in September 2024, after the failure of negotiations to spin the label off as a separate company.

Then, in November, Take-Two announced that they would sell Private Division, while also confirming the closure of OlliOlli World devs Roll7 and Kerbal Space Program 2 devs Intercept Games. Private Division are comparable to Annapurna Interactive in publishing "mid-tier" games like Rollerdrome and After Us, that have a particular combination of artsy-experimental and blockbuster polish - the broad idea being to enhance Take-Two's prestige as a publisher of innovative work and establish revenue streams beyond the vast empires of Rockstar and 2K Games. Or at least, that's my impression, based on years of preview events.

It's the kind of venture that gets chopped when the old "economic headwinds" are a-blowing and investors aren't seeing desired returns, even when the operation is