Former employees of Annapurna Interactive are reportedly taking charge of the game projects and franchises previously managed by Private Division, a former Take-Two label known for publishing indie games.
After Take-Two sold the publisher behind The Outer Worlds and Rollerdrome last year, it’s now been confirmed that the ex-Annapurna team has found their next venture. According to Bloomberg, this team will now take over the games and brands of Private Division, which was once a subsidiary of Take-Two.
A new business venture, still unnamed, is said to have been formed, and it appears that some of Private Division’s remaining staff—around 20 employees—will be laid off during the transition. In November of the previous year, Take-Two announced it had sold Private Division (which published The Outer Worlds and the physical edition of Hades) to an undisclosed buyer, reportedly a private equity firm called Haveli Investments.
Haveli has reportedly brought the former Annapurna employees on board in recent weeks and handed them control of Private Division’s portfolio. This includes games like Tales of the Shire, a cozy life simulation based on The Lord of the Rings, the Kerbal Space Program series, and a new project from Game Freak, the studio best known for the Pokémon games.
The entire Annapurna Interactive team left the company last summer after discussions to separate the publisher from its parent company, Annapurna Pictures, broke down. Annapurna then began seeking a new team to take over.
Annapurna Interactive has an impressive track record in the indie space, having published highly regarded games like Stray, Sayonara Wild Hearts, What Remains of Edith Finch, Cocoon, and the slightly confusingly named Outer Wilds. This makes it exciting to think that its former team will be able to do great things with the Private Division portfolio. Hopefully, this also means a bright future for OlliOlli and Rollerdrome—two excellent games developed by Roll7, a now-closed studio that was previously under the Private Division umbrella.