In a rather unusual combination of two completely separate stories from last year, former Annapurna Interactive employees are apparently preparing to take over the portfolio of closed indie studio Private Division. At least some of the remaining Private Division employees are expected to be laid off.
This is according to the report from Bloombergwhich states that a currently unnamed company staffed by former Annapurna Interactive employees has reached an agreement with private equity firm Haveli to take over the distribution of Private Division titles. Reports from Bloomberg and IGN can independently confirm that Haveli is the company that purchased Private Division from Take-Two Interactive last year for an undisclosed amount.
The portfolio includes both current and upcoming Private Division titles, such as Tales of the Shire, which launches on March 25. It also includes Project Bloom, a AAA action-adventure game developed by Game Freak that was announced in 2023 and only featured a teaser of concept art.
As Bloomberg reports, Haveli’s purchase of Private Division included not only the portfolio, but also the 20 employees who remained at the label after layoffs introduced by Take-Two last spring. The remaining employees were reportedly told to consider other employment options, with the understanding that at least some of them would be laid off as part of a deal with an unnamed up-to-date publisher.
Private Division is the former Take-Two publishing company, which the company founded in 2017. It was intended to support independent games whose prices were lower than those typically offered by the publisher of Grand Theft Auto. Over the years, Private Division produced titles such as The Outer Worlds, OlliOlli World, and Kerbal Space Program 2, but game sales repeatedly fell below Take-Two’s expectations. At the beginning of last year, we reported that Take-Two was slowly closing its Private Division operations, first by winding down operations in supported studios and then by selling the label.
The up-to-date owners of the Private Division portfolio are a group of former Annapurna Interactive employees who collectively resigned last year following a leadership dispute at Annapurna. Last fall, we wrote about the unclear circumstances in which Annapurna tried to hire its entire publishing team to cover its numerous obligations, and about 25 people were looking for up-to-date employment.
Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. Her posts can be found on BlueSky @duckvalentine.bsky.social. Have a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.
