Big Bad Wolf Reportedly Faces Closure Weeks After Cthulhu: The Cosmic Abyss Launch as Nacon’s Crisis Deepens
Nacon’s post showcase damage control may already be facing another major test. A new report claims that Big Bad Wolf, the studio behind Cthulhu: The Cosmic Abyss and Vampire: The Masquerade Swansong, is being prepared for closure as part of Nacon’s ongoing restructuring and insolvency fallout. At the time of writing, this has not been officially confirmed by Nacon, Big Bad Wolf, or Cyanide, so it should still be treated as a report rather than a finalized corporate announcement. That distinction matters, especially given how volatile the publisher’s situation has become over the past several weeks.
What makes the report especially concerning is the timing. Cthulhu: The Cosmic Abyss only launched on April 16, 2026, with both its official store listings and Nacon’s own product page confirming Big Bad Wolf as the developer. That means the studio would be facing possible closure barely weeks after shipping a brand new title, which would be a brutal outcome even by the standards of the industry’s recent restructuring cycle.
The wider context around the report makes it harder to dismiss. Nacon filed for insolvency earlier this year, and subsequent judicial reorganization proceedings also affected several subsidiaries, including Cyanide, Kylotonn, and Spiders. Reporting from the French game workers union STJV says these studios entered judicial reorganization under the same administrators as Nacon, and Spiders has already been reported as shut down. That means a reported move against Big Bad Wolf would not be an isolated incident. It would fit into a broader pattern of escalating damage across Nacon’s studio network.
There is another warning sign in parallel. STJV has publicly stated that Kylotonn is facing what it described as violent and massive layoffs, with a worker representative meeting reportedly postponed from May 6 to May 13, allegedly to avoid disrupting the optics around Nacon Connect 2026. That does not confirm Kylotonn is closing, but it does reinforce the idea that Nacon’s restructuring is still actively unfolding behind the scenes even as the company continues to publicly promote new games and accessories.
INFO Origami - En plus de la liquidation de Spiders et des licenciements massifs chez Kylotonn, le groupe Nacon prépare la fermerture de Big Bad Wolf, antenne bordelaise de Cyanide. Il s'agit du studio derrière The Council, Vampire Swansong et Cthulhu: The Cosmic Abyss, sorti il y a trois semaines.
— Gauthier 'Gautoz' Andres (@gautoz.cool) May 8, 2026 at 2:31 AM
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For Big Bad Wolf, the possible closure would hit especially hard because the studio had built a recognizable identity inside the narrative adventure space. The Council, Vampire: The Masquerade Swansong, and now Cthulhu: The Cosmic Abyss all showed a clear interest in choice driven storytelling, mystery, and strong atmosphere, even when execution varied from project to project. Losing that team so soon after shipping a new game would be another serious blow not just to Nacon’s portfolio, but to the mid tier narrative game space in Europe.
There is also a larger industry issue here. Nacon used its recent showcase to project resilience and continuity, but each new report undercuts that message further. If Big Bad Wolf is indeed the next casualty, then Nacon’s 2026 slate starts to look less like a recovery story and more like a publisher trying to hold together a pipeline while pieces of its development structure continue to fall away. That does not automatically mean collapse is inevitable, but it does make every new announcement feel more fragile.
For now, the most responsible reading is this: Big Bad Wolf’s closure is reported, not confirmed. The studio’s latest game is already out, the publisher has not publicly finalized the move, and the full scope of Nacon’s restructuring is still developing. But given the company’s recent trajectory, the report is serious enough that it cannot be brushed aside.
We will have to watch closely for an official statement from Nacon, Cyanide, or Big Bad Wolf in the coming days. If this report is confirmed, it would mark another major loss in a crisis that is already reshaping one of France’s largest game publishing groups.
Do you think Nacon can still stabilize its studios after this wave of insolvency fallout, or has the damage already gone too far?
