Spiders

Spiders is a developer.

Spiders Webpage, Facebook

A Paris-based French studio that specializes in developing games for both consoles and PC's. The team, founded in 2008, has been working closely with Focus Home Interactive from day one, which published most of its games - and it’s worth pointing out that every single one of them runs on the studio’s ever-evolving, proprietary Silk Engine. Spiders is formed of a few dozen people - plus a number of freelancers - and is led by Jehanne Rousseau. Since July 2019, Spiders has been part of Nacon, the company previously known as Bigben Interactive.

The history of Spiders

From developers on commission…

The roots of the Paris-based Spiders studio go back to 2008, when it was founded by a group of developers who had met while working on Silverfall. The developers quickly clicked and decided to branch out on their own. The team’s very first project was a port of Sherlock Holmes vs. Jack the Ripper for Xbox 360. They handled the job well, kicking off a long and successful partnership with publisher Focus Home Interactive.

In 2010, Spiders released its first original game: Faery: Legends of Avalon. The team drew on their experience from working on Silverfall to create a classic action RPG featuring turn-based combat.

Over the next two years, Spiders took a couple of side steps, developing console ports of Gray Matter (for DTP Entertainment) and The Testament of Sherlock Holmes. In September 2012, the team released their next game, Of Orcs and Men, developed in collaboration with Cyanide Studio. What made it stand out was how it flipped the usual fantasy formula - players controlled an orc and a goblin waging war against the humans who were killing their kind. The game received a fairly positive response from players and critics alike, with one of its highlights being the duo of protagonists - the orc Arkail favored brute force, while the goblin Styx took a stealthier approach.

…to action RPG specialists

Of Orcs and Men never got a direct sequel. Instead, Cyanide chose to continue Styx’s story in a separate series. Meanwhile, Spiders moved on to new projects, starting with Mars: War Logs, which came out in 2013. The game was set on Mars, its inhabitants locked in a brutal struggle for survival. The game didn’t reinvent the action RPG, sticking to tried-and-true mechanics, but it still managed to achieve moderate success.

In 2014, the studio shifted back to fantasy. Bound by Flame, released that year, was also Spiders’ first game to launch on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. Unfortunately, its reviews weren't as good as those of their last two games. Undeterred, the team returned to the red planet and soon announced their next game, The Technomancer.

This time, the developers took more time to craft the game, which launched in June 2016. The team created a world of Technomancers, a group of warriors harnessing the power of electricity - a concept familiar from Mars: War Logs. The game's protagonist was tasked with reestablishing contact between the Martian colony and Earth. Like Mars: War Logs, The Technomancer achieved moderate success. The developers expanded nearly every aspect of the gameplay, adding more character development options, four combat styles, companion commands and relationship mechanics, an extensive crafting system, plenty of side quests, and a more complex, somewhat non-linear story.

GreedFall's Success

In February 2017, another action RPG started taking shape in Spiders’ lineup: GreedFall, set in a fantasy world blending 18th-century colonial vibes with classic fantasy elements. The people of this unusual land lived in harmony with magic and nature - until colonial powers set their sights on their territories. GreedFall launched on PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One on September 10, 2019. At launch, it became Spiders’ highest-rated game, with critics giving it scores above 75%. The project also proved popular with players. This was reflected in glowing Steam reviews and strong sales, first reported by publisher Focus Home Interactive and later confirmed by Spiders themselves: by August 2020, over one million players had experienced the game.

Moving under the wing of Nacon

In July 2019, Nacon announced it had acquired the team, meaning their next project would be developed under its banner A year later, that project was revealed to be Steelrising, another action RPG. This time, the developers took players to an alternate, clockpunk version of Paris caught up in revolution. The game’s protagonist, Aegis, was a female robot on a mission to find Marie Antoinette and stop the bloody conflict between the revolutionaries and Louis XVI’s mechanical army.

Steelrising launched on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X/S in September 2022. The game was well-received by players, earning "mostly positive" reviews on Steam, and by the media, with Metacritic scores ranging from 68 to 74 out of 100 depending on the platform.

GreedFall 2's troubled development

Meanwhile, in May 2022, Spiders Studio and Nacon announced their next collaboration: GreedFall II: The Dying World. The game was released on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X/S. On September 24, 2024, GreedFall II entered Steam Early Access, where it’s set to stay as long as needed to meet the team’s quality standards.

Just before the game’s Early Access launch, the team started striking, citing low pay, management problems, and a lack of transparency and compromise in negotiations among their concerns. The protest, later joined by Kylotonn, ran from September 2 to 6 and ended successfully for those involved. Although Nacon claimed the accusations were "false and defamatory," they eventually agreed to raise salaries, improve working conditions - especially regarding remote work - and conduct a work environment audit.