Video game publisher Nacon has filed for insolvency. As part of the process, the trading of its shares on the Euronext Paris markets has been suspended, with the prices it announced on February 20th being in effect. The reason for this filing, according to a press release, comes down to majority shareholder Bigben Interactive being unable to make a partial repayment of its bond loan to its bondholders. This came about from an “unexpected and late refusal” by Bigben’s banking pool, and has also had a major impact on its own operations.
To survive, Nacon needs a “rapid implementation of a financial restructuring”. While the company had considered restructuring its debt under court supervision, it concluded that it did not have enough available assets to pay off its debts in a timely manner. With the insolvency filing, the company is now requesting judicial reorganization proceedings in an attempt to assess possible solutions to ensure Nacon’s survival “under the best possible conditions,” which includes protecting its employees, preserving jobs, and renegotiating with creditors. The hearing is slated to take place in early March.
It is worth noting that Nacon has many studios under its belt, including GreedFall: The Dying World developer Spiders, and Daedalic Entertainment, which was responsible for 2023’s The Lord of the Rings: Gollum. Nacon has also acquired several studios, including Neopica, Midgar Studio, Ishtar Games, and Big Ant Studios, among others.
While it has had a hand in publishing several video games, recent times have been quite tough for the publisher. Over the last few years, it released several poorly received games, including the aforementioned Gollum, and Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown. However, there have also been plenty of positively-received ones, like 2024’s Ravenswatch.
While Nacon as an entity only came about as part of a 2020 move to merge Bigben Group and Bigben Interactive, the company is actually quite old, having existed in some form or another since the 1980s. In the last few years, the company was also known for getting into a legal scuffle with developer Frogwares over the release of first-person horror adventure game The Sinking City.
Its most recent outing has been the Cyanide-developed Styx: Blades of Greed, which came out on PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S earlier this month. The title once more features the titular goblin assassin on brand new adventure to get his hands on as much Quartz as he can find. For more details, check out our review, where we gave the stealth action adventure game a score of 7 out of 10, praising its story and level design while finding flaws in enemy AI logic and a lack of upgrades in the early game.
Check out our interview with the series creator and game director Julien Desourteaux, where we spoke about Styx: Blades of Greed‘s story, the overarching lore, its gameplay evolution, and other subjects.