Nacon’s Financial Crisis Deepens as Spiders, Kylotonn, and Cyanide File for Insolvency

Things have gone from worrying to outright grim for Nacon.

Three of the publisher’s best-known internal studios Spiders, Kylotonn, and Cyanide Studio have now all filed for insolvency with the Lille Métropole Commercial Court, alongside Nacon Tech. The four subsidiaries have also requested the opening of judicial reorganization proceedings, a legal process under French law that effectively freezes liabilities for a set observation period while a restructuring plan is explored.

For anyone hoping this was just a one-off issue at the publisher level, that hope is now looking pretty thin.

This Isn’t a Shutdown But It’s Definitely Serious

Judicial reorganization doesn’t automatically mean closure. In France, it’s designed to buy struggling companies time. During the observation period which can stretch up to 18 months businesses are given breathing room to stabilize operations, renegotiate with creditors, and potentially propose a continuation plan aimed at keeping the company alive.

That’s the legal framing. The practical reality is less comforting: some of Nacon’s most important development teams are now formally caught in the same financial spiral as the parent company.

And these aren’t minor support studios tucked away in the background.

Spiders is best known for the GreedFall franchise and its run of scrappy AA RPGs. Kylotonn has spent recent years handling rally and driving projects, including the World Rally Championship series. Cyanide Studio, meanwhile, has built its name on games like Styx and Blood Bowl. These are core pieces of Nacon’s development identity not side bets.

The Important Context: Nacon Itself Already Filed

This doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Nacon itself filed for insolvency back in February, after financial pressure tied to its majority shareholder, Bigben Interactive, spilled directly into its own operations. At the time, the company said it intended to pursue what it described as a “credible and effective” continuation plan after failing to partially repay a bond loan.

In its investor note from February, Nacon said the goal of the process was to “ensure the sustainability” of the business, protect employees, preserve jobs, and renegotiate debt “in a calm and constructive framework.” That was the corporate version of “we’re trying not to sink.”

Now, just over a month later, that crisis has spread deeper into the group.

On March 23, Nacon confirmed that these four subsidiaries had also filed, and said the group had begun work alongside judicial administrators and advisors on the outline of a broader restructuring plan covering both the company and its subsidiaries.

What This Could Mean Going Forward

Right now, the key word is uncertainty.

Nacon currently employs more than 1,000 workers across 25 subsidiaries, including 16 development studios. That means what happens next won’t just affect one or two projects it could shape a large chunk of the publisher’s future pipeline.

And that’s where the concern really starts to hit.

Because while “judicial reorganization” sounds cleaner than “collapse,” the underlying issue is still the same: the business is trying to survive under financial pressure severe enough to force multiple insolvency filings across its structure. That tends to mean delayed projects, reworked budgets, uncertain staffing, and a lot of internal decision-making that fans will never actually see.

At the moment, no immediate studio closures have been formally announced as part of this latest development. But that doesn’t make this small. If anything, it makes this one of the more consequential publisher-side stories of the year so far.

Nacon isn’t just trying to recover from a rough quarter anymore.

It’s trying to prove that a large part of its development network can still hold together at all.