After almost 13 years and 11 games, Nerial, the studio behind Reigns and Card Shark, is closing. Founder and creative director François Alliot says the decision reflects a difficult games market, changing creative priorities and his wish to return to making games independently.
From Reigns breakthrough to studio closure
Nerial’s debut, Reigns, became a major success when it launched in 2016. Its Tinder-inspired card-swiping structure combined quick strategic decisions with dry humour about power, wealth and mortality. The game reached far beyond the usual mobile audience and led to licensed follow-ups based on Game of Thrones and The Witcher.
The studio remained active after Reigns, but its later releases did not deliver the same financial results. Card Shark and Crush House were less lucrative, while their reception encouraged Alliot to reconsider the direction of his independent career.
Alliot points to several pressures affecting game development: the post-COVID downturn, tighter finances across the industry and the growing presence of generative artificial intelligence. He says Nerial needs to rebuild from stronger foundations, and that he needs to step away from running the studio to work out what comes next.
A return to concentrated indie development
Nerial was purchased by Reigns publisher Devolver Digital in 2021. Alliot says that relationship has been positive and that closing Nerial was a mutual decision. However, becoming an internal studio meant that each new project had to fit Devolver’s publishing plans.
That arrangement suited games such as Reigns and Card Shark, but Alliot says it also introduced another layer of consideration. Rather than constantly weighing what both sides wanted, he would like to regain the focused energy of a small independent team. His next projects may work with Devolver, but they will not necessarily need to be Devolver titles.
Devolver will retain the rights to Nerial’s existing catalogue. Alliot is comfortable with that arrangement and says he has already expressed what he wants to express through those games. He remains close friends with the publisher and expects it would contact him if it wanted to pursue Card Shark 2, another Reigns project or a related idea. He will retain his prototypes, which are his main creative priority for now.
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Seven team members affected
Nerial had nine people. Alliot and his wife, Tamara, will continue making games together, while seven other team members are losing their positions as the studio shuts down. Alliot hopes he may be able to hire some of them as contractors in the future, but cannot currently keep them as salaried employees.
Alliot specifically praised the departing team: Helen O’Dell, the artist associated with Reigns; producer AJ Kerr; developers Gordon Speirs, Ben Obikoya and Neil Goodman; writer Oscar Harrington-Shaw, who worked on Reigns: The Witcher; and designer Neil Bull. He highlighted Speirs and Goodman’s 30 years of combined games-industry experience and described the group as talented people who had done excellent work for Nerial.
Looking for inspiration
Alliot says he wants time to breathe after the demands of studio leadership. He has been visiting the Louvre and Musée d’Orsay almost every day, looking for ideas and inspiration. Art may influence whatever project he develops next.
He is also concerned about how quickly new game concepts can be copied. In his view, an original idea can now be replicated within a day, followed by thousands of variations appearing on Steam. That creates particular pressure for independent developers whose work depends on offering a fresh experience or a new perspective on a familiar one.
Alliot believes the games industry is moving through a period of rapid change and may need several years to understand its consequences. Despite that uncertainty, he says he still has new ideas and a distinctive voice to bring to future projects.
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