Spiders Is Already Gone.
Eighteen years of development ended Tuesday night as the lights went out at Spiders, a victim of Nacon's collapse and an industry that no longer has room for the middle class.
Tuesday night, 70 people in Paris had their last drink together and said goodbye to nearly two decades of work. Spiders, the studio that spent 18 years carving out a niche for itself in the difficult space between indie budgets and AAA polish, is officially done. There is no last-minute rescue, no white knight buyer, and no soft landing. Just a court-appointed administrator and a liquidation order.
We’ve spent the last two years watching the industry contract, but the closure of Spiders hits differently. This wasn’t a studio making over-scoped live-service garbage that deserved to fail. They made GreedFall. They made Steelrising. They were the quintessential mid-tier developer — the kind of studio that kept the industry interesting while the majors were busy chasing engagement metrics. Now they’re gone because their parent company, Nacon, decided to drive the entire bus off a cliff.
Nacon filed for insolvency back in February. This is the publisher that supposedly had it all figured out — 16 studios under its belt, hits like RoboCop: Rogue City. Instead, they hit a wall weeks before the scheduled launch of GreedFall 2. When the money dried up, the vultures didn’t even circle. They just looked at the books and walked away.
The most damning part of this story isn’t the insolvency itself — it’s the fact that no one wanted to buy Spiders. A studio with a proven track record, a loyal fanbase, and an active sequel in development. In any rational market, Spiders is an asset. In 2026, they were considered a liability.
The acquisition market has completely evaporated. Two years ago, Embracer or Microsoft would have swallowed a studio like this for the IP alone. Today, the capital is gone and the appetite for risk is zero. If a studio like Spiders — one that actually ships games that people actually buy — can’t find a home, then the AA tier of game development is officially a graveyard.
Nacon’s collapse is dragging down more than just Spiders. Kylotonn and Cyanide are also in the line of fire. We’re looking at the potential erasure of a significant chunk of the European development scene because of corporate overextension. The people at the top spent years playing musical chairs with studio acquisitions, and now that the music has stopped, the developers are out on the street.
If a studio like Spiders — one that actually ships games — can’t find a buyer, then the mid-tier is officially a graveyard.
The human cost is predictably ugly. Seventy people are updating their résumés tonight, entering a job market that is already oversaturated with talent. According to GDC’s 2026 State of the Industry survey, 33% of US developers lost their jobs in the last two years. Since 2022, over 44,000 jobs have been cut across the industry. This isn’t a correction anymore. It’s a structural failure. The institutional knowledge and the creative middle class that make this industry worth following are being systematically eliminated.
The timing of GreedFall 2 is its own kind of cruel. The sequel launched March 12 — full release, across PC and consoles — just six weeks before the liquidation order came down. Spiders shipped it. They crossed the finish line. And still got closed. GreedFall 2 exists. The studio that made it doesn’t. That’s the math Nacon’s collapse has left behind.
This month alone: Iron Galaxy, Polyarc, Dark Outlaw Games, Behaviour Interactive. All cutting, all within weeks of each other. The industry is being hollowed out, and what’s left will be a handful of trillion-dollar corporations making safe sequels and a sea of tiny indies struggling to break through. The middle — the place where the weird, ambitious, and interesting games actually come from — is being erased in real time.
Nacon didn’t have to fail. Spiders didn’t have to close. This is the direct result of treating game studios like trading cards — acquiring them to pad portfolio numbers, then walking away when the balance sheet doesn’t cooperate. The people paying for that management philosophy aren’t the executives. They never are.
Drink up, Spiders. You deserved a better ending than a court-mandated liquidation.
Sources: WCCFTech · Game Informer · Game Rant
