Sega has announced that they have ended their publishing deal with the indie studio Interior Night. The end of the deal comes just under eighteen months after the two companies first announced that they had partnered together for the launch of a new narrative driven game developed by Interior Night.
The news of the deal ending came via an interview by MCV with Sega Europe’s head of content Bobby Wertheim. In the interview, Wertheim discussed how the company decided not to continue with the deal even though Sega’s Searchlight program lets the company ” take a risk and try something new.” Wertheim would continue with, “And we don’t have interactive narrative games in our portfolio. And that was a real new challenge for Sega. In the end, not every project is going to go as well as I personally would like. So it’s the end of the relationship but we’re just working hard to find the next big thing.”
While the partnership was ended between the two companies, it appears it was an amicable split. Wertheim stated, “We have a lot of respect for the studio and I’m still really good friends with several people on the team.” The CEO of Interior Night, Caroline Marchal, shared the same sentiment as Wertheim and stated that the split was due to “strategic reasons.”
It’s been a pleasure to work with Sega and to have their support during the early days of the studio.
Marchal also gave insight to what the game Interior Night is working on describing it as a “an innovative narrative experience, aimed at a mature audience.” She also stated that the studio will announce a new partnership when the time comes. Marchal, herself, previously worked at Sony Europe and Quantic Dream, prior to forming Interior Night back in 2017 to focus on “innovative and accessible narrative games.”