Inside Annapurna Interactive

Writer Emily Gosling attempts to get to grips with the elusive Annapurna Interactive, the games studio within film studio Annapurna Pictures, which has been described as “the most exciting publisher around”

Annapurna Interactive are a mysterious bunch. The games studio is the interactive arm of film studio Annapurna Pictures (which produced the likes of Her, American Hustle and Sausage Party). Based in LA, it has garnered a lot of press around its output, without doing much press at all. A spokesperson from the company told us, “Annapurna Interactive prefers to let the games and game developers speak for themselves”, as they “politely declined” to tell us more about the company. Not that all that hush seems to matter: gaming site Kotaku earlier this year described them as “the most exciting publisher around”.

That air of mystique is palpable across the company’s output: its website flickers like a ropey analogue TV, and the VHS video plays a starring role in their homepage sting. The message seems to be that they’re edgy, playful, slightly outré – a sharp contrast to the shiny, HD world you might normally associate with gaming.