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During a recent interview with MCV, Sega revealed that its publishing deal with narrative-driven studio Interior Night was over.
Talking to Sega Europe’s head of content Bobby Wertheim, also working at Sega’s incubation programme Searchlight, he explained that unfortunately not all projects can come to fruition.
“Sega did announce a partnership with Interior Night. Interior Night is a really talented studio, headed up by Caroline Marchal who is amazing and really experienced but Sega decided not to continue with that project. We have a lot of respect for the studio and I’m still really good friends with several people on the team,” he told MCV.
It sounds like a narrative-driven IP may not have been the best fit for Sega.
“The great thing about Sega Searchlight is basically saying: we’re willing to take a risk and try something new,” Wertheim continued. “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.”
MCV reached out to Interior Night for a comment, with CEO and creative director Caroline Marchal saying: “It’s been a pleasure to work with Sega and to have their support during the early days of the studio. Ultimately, we have amicably parted ways for strategic reasons. However, development on the game – an innovative narrative experience, aimed at a mature audience – is proceeding well. We will announce our new partnership in due course.”
Interior Night was founded in November 2017 by Marchal, a Quantic Dream veteran. The new studio, focused on “innovative and accessible narrative games”, staffed up quite quickly with three senior hires. The London-based studio announced its partnership with Sega in January last year.
We talked to Caroline Marchal about creating her new studio, fuelled by diversity and passion, back in March last year, and she also shared her thoughts about triple-A fatigue in our big feature on the topic in June 2018.
You can read more about Sega Searchlight in the next issue of MCV, out on July 31st
