A new report claims that an as-yet unnamed company comprising former Annapurna Interactive employees is set to take over publishing duties for franchises that would have been overseen by ex-Take-Two indie label Private Division.
According to a report by Bloomberg's Jason Schreier, ex-Annapurna Interactive staffers have formed a new company following their abrupt resignation in September, which resulted from the failure of talks to spin the division off into its own entity.
The new company will, according to Schreier, "inherit the games and franchises of Private Division", which was sold off by former parent company Take-Two in November to an unknown buyer. The report, citing "people familiar with the deal", names that buyer as the Texas-based Haveli Investments.
Supposedly, Haveli will fund the new company and "place them in charge of distributing the former Private Division titles", which will include the likes of cozy hobbit life sim Tales of the Shire and beleaguered space sandbox Kerbal Space Program.
According to Schreier, "an unannounced title" by Pokemon developer Game Freak will also be included in the deal. That game is almost certainly the previously-revealed Project Bloom, which doesn't have an official name yet, so hopefully we'll get to see a new reveal for it soon.
Schreier's report says that some of Private Division's 20 employees "will be laid off as part of the new arrangement", although we don't yet know which employees or in what departments those layoffs will be focused.
The writing was arguably on the wall for Private Division as early as April last year, when Take-Two laid off 5% of its workforce and scrapped a number of projects. Following that, Private Division and Bloober Team ended a previously-announced partnership for a new horror IP in May.
It's worth noting that the new company hasn't officially been announced yet, so we don't know what it'll be called or what its plans are for the IPs now apparently under its stewardship. Stay tuned for more on this one.
