Nerial, the London studio that turned a left-or-right swipe into one of mobile gaming's most copied ideas, is ending development. In a statement posted on October 1, founders Tamara and François Alliot said the studio is "entering hibernation mode" after 13 years and 11 published games, a decision they made together with Devolver Digital, the publisher that has owned Nerial since 2021.
What Nerial announced
The note was short and dry. It opens by poking fun at itself as "another one of those studio announcements with text on a somber background color", and then gets to the point: development at Nerial is over. It does not give a reason, and it does not say how many people work at the studio. The founders say the team will now look for new jobs, and they recommend every one of them to any studio looking to hire.
The statement also says nothing about what happens to the games already on sale. As of today, Nerial's games are still listed on Steam, and Devolver has not announced anything about delistings or ongoing support. Players who own the games on phones should not expect any immediate change, but with no studio left behind them, future OS updates are the long-term risk for any mobile catalogue like this one.
Reigns and the swipe
Nerial's breakout was Reigns, released in August 2016. You play a medieval monarch, and every decision is a card: swipe one way to approve an advisor's request, the other way to refuse it. Four meters, the church, the people, the army and the treasury, have to stay balanced. Let any of them hit empty or full and your reign ends, and the next ruler in the dynasty takes over. The game was built for a single thumb, and that is a big part of why it caught on so widely on phones.
The founders' note recalls the "utter puzzlement" of seeing so many people play it. The format turned into a series. Reigns: Her Majesty followed, and then licensed versions built on the same card-and-swipe idea, including adaptations of Game of Thrones, Animal Farm and Three Kingdoms. Reigns Beyond moved the formula into science fiction with a touring space rock band.
The last of these was Reigns: The Witcher, made with CD Projekt RED and released on February 25, 2026. It put Geralt into the swipe format and added card-based combat, and it turned out to be the studio's final release, about seven months before today's announcement.
Card Shark and The Crush House
Nerial also branched out beyond Reigns. Card Shark, released on June 2, 2022, is a game about cheating at cards in 18th-century France. Instead of playing poker fairly, you learn sleight-of-hand tricks: pouring wine to signal a partner, marking cards and stacking the deck, all under the nose of increasingly suspicious aristocrats. Its painterly art style and dangerous premise made it one of the more distinctive games in Devolver's catalogue, and the founders say fans are still sending them "fascinating and slightly disturbing" Card Shark fan art.
Then came The Crush House, which launched on August 9, 2024. You produce a 1990s-style reality TV show set in a Malibu mansion: you choose the cast, point the camera, and keep a live audience entertained before the ratings fall. The founders call it "our most ambitious project" and say they remain "immensely proud" of it.
Not the end of game development for the founders
The statement ends on a quieter note. The Alliots say this is "the end of Nerial as we know it" but not the end of game development for them. They describe a return to their roots: François still wants to make games, they write, but first the pair want to take a break and come back with a new perspective. There is no timeline and no hint of a new studio name.
The word "hibernation" stands out. It leaves the Nerial name in place rather than dissolving it, though nothing in the announcement suggests the studio will restart. For now, its legacy is a design that a lot of phone games have borrowed since 2016: one card, two choices, and a kingdom that can fall apart in a single swipe.
