The fallout from Take-Two Interactive’s selloff of its Personal Division publishing label continued at present as Moon Studios introduced that it has acquired the rights to its newest recreation, No Relaxation for the Depraved, and is now “totally impartial.”
All of it stretches again to Could 2024, when stories that Take-Two was trying to promote or shut Personal Division first got here to gentle. Take-Two confirmed that it had certainly offloaded Personal Division to an unnamed purchaser—later revealed to be non-public fairness agency Haveli Investments, who signed up former Annapurna Interactive staff to run the present—in November 2024.
The sale included “considerably all of Personal Division’s dwell and unreleased” video games, with one notable exception: No Relaxation for the Depraved, which Take-Two mentioned it could proceed to help.
Quick-forward to now, and all that has modified. “Our writer for No Relaxation for the Depraved was Personal Division, a subsidiary of Take-Two Interactive,” Moon Studios’ Thomas Mahler and Gennadiy Korol clarify in a developer video posted at present. “Take-Two determined to dump Personal Division, which was surprising information for us.
“After some deliberation, we noticed a possibility. After months of negotiations, we reached an settlement to purchase the publishing rights for No Relaxation for the Depraved again, in order that Moon Studios may change into totally impartial. This authorized course of took time, and we could not say a lot whereas it was all taking place. However at present, we’re excited to announce that it is all completed and that Moon Studios is now totally impartial.”
Mahler and Korol mentioned the change ought to give gamers “extra confidence” in Moon Studios’ imaginative and prescient for the sport, “as a result of we’re free to construct No Relaxation for the Depraved precisely how we would like, while not having to ever go silent once more.”
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Step one in that course of shall be The Breach, which they mentioned is the biggest content material replace ever launched for No Relaxation for the Depraved, set to go dwell on April 30. The Breach contains “large” new zones “that primarily double the scale of the world,” in addition to two new weapon archetypes, new enemies, bosses, secrets and techniques, and different content material. Development and kit drops have been reworked, plenty of quality-of-life modifications have been made, and gamers can now attempt their luck with “Hardcore Characters,” which can endure permadeath if and after they go down. They will not change into inaccessible upon loss of life, although, however will as a substitute be downgraded to non-hardcore characters that may solely be performed on common realms.
Considerably unusually, The Breach will not be accessible as a daily enlargement: Current saves will stay in a “legacy construct,” and you may must replay the sport in an effort to “totally expertise this replace.”
“This method ensures The Breach is built-in as seamlessly as potential into the sport,” Mahler says within the video. “We understand this may be a shock for some. In the end, the scope of The Breach and the underlying modifications led us right here.”
It appears like a significant overhaul to No Relaxation for the Depraved, and albeit it in all probability wants one. Concurrent participant counts have tailed off precipitously since its early entry launch in April 2024, from a excessive of greater than 36,000 to only a few hundred at any given time over the previous six months.
These participant numbers might have helped immediate Take-Two to unload the sport—CEO Strauss Zelnick mentioned when he confirmed the sale of Personal Division that its video games “weren’t massive within the context of our core mental properties at 2K and Rockstar,” and had been thus not one thing the corporate was significantly enthusiastic about pursuing—however why it opted to carry onto No Relaxation for the Depraved within the first place is unclear.
In any occasion, Moon Studios plans to “closely help” The Breach within the weeks following its launch, with extra content material drops and an replace for co-op play, which had initially been deliberate for launch earlier than The Breach: Korol mentioned Moon Studios opted to roll out The Breach first to present gamers extra content material to play by way of as soon as co-op goes dwell.
