Private Division's 'games and franchises,' including Kerbal Space Program, are reportedly being taken over by former Annapurna Interactive employees
Take-Two Interactive said in November 2024 that it had sold Private Division, the "high-end indie" publishing label it launched in 2017, to an undisclosed buyer, along with "substantially all of Private Division’s live and unreleased titles." The identity of the buyer was not revealed, but a new Bloomberg report (via Game Developer) says the division's "games and franchises" will be taken over by former employees of Annapurna Interactive, the gaming-focused subsidiary of Annapurna Pictures that collapsed in September 2024 after its entire staff and senior leadership team resigned.
The former Annapurna Interactive employees were not the buyers of Private Division themselves, according to the Bloomberg report: Haveli Investments, a private equity firm, made the purchase and subsequently did a deal with the ex-Annapurna staffers to take control of the games. It sounds like the Private Division label will not be retained, as the newly-formed company does not yet have a name, and some of the roughly 20 employees of Private Division will be laid off.
Annapurna Interactive was founded in 2016 and quickly established a reputation for publishing offbeat but excellent games including Kentucky Route Zero, Outer Wilds, Sayonara Wild Hearts, What Remains of Edith Finch, Telling Lies, Neon White, and Stray. But the staff resigned wholesale last year after a leadership shakeup and the collapse of negotiations to spin the division off into a standalone company. Annapurna Interactive continues to operate under new leadership and staff.
As for Private Division, it apparently just wasn't big enough for Take-Two Interactive to bother with. Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick said Private Division's biggest games "were not big in the context of our core intellectual properties at 2K and Rockstar" when the sale was revealed, which was not a good fit for Take-Two's status as "being a top-ten player."
The Bloomberg report says the new company will take control of games including Tales of the Shire, which is set to launch on March 25, and maybe more interestingly, the Kerbal Space Program series. Kerbal Space Program 2 was expected to be Private Division's flagship game when it launched into early access in 2023, but it flopped badly and hasn't been updated since June 2024, leading many to assume it's been abandoned.
I've reached out to Haveli Investments for comment and will update if I receive a reply.