Don’t Nod, the French studio behind the first two Life Is Strange games, Jusant and Lost Records: Bloom & Rage, has been placed in safeguard proceedings by a Paris court. The company announced the move on Oct. 20 alongside its first-half 2026 results, saying the Tribunal des activités économiques de Paris granted its request in a ruling dated Oct. 19.
It is not a bankruptcy. Don’t Nod keeps operating while it works out how to pay for the road ahead.
What a safeguard procedure is
A French safeguard procedure is a court-supervised breathing space that a company asks for itself, before it has missed payments. Corporate finance advisory firm Hectelion, quoted by PC Gamer, describes it as “a preventive French insolvency procedure available to companies that are not yet in payment default but face difficulties they cannot overcome alone.” PC Gamer compares it to Chapter 11 in the United States.
In practice, debts that existed before the ruling are frozen, and creditors cannot enforce them for the time being. A court-appointed administrator watches over the business during an observation period, and the company uses that time to negotiate a plan to reduce or spread out its debt, which a court must then approve. Hectelion puts the observation period at six to 18 months. Don’t Nod says the court opened an initial six-month period and named the firm SELARL Détroit, represented by Charles-Henri Carboni, as judicial administrator.
Why Don’t Nod asked for it
“The videogame industry continues to face an exceptionally challenging environment, marked in particular by highly selective access to financing,” chairman and chief executive officer Oskar Guilbert said, in PC Gamer’s translation of the statement. “In this context, our current cash position does not allow us to adequately secure all the financing requirements associated with our operations and projects.”
Guilbert called the filing “a proactive, protection measure” meant to give the studio “the necessary framework and time to build a sustainable solution, while continuing our operations and preserving the value of our assets, our projects and our expertise.”
The numbers explain the urgency. Don’t Nod reported first-half revenue of 6.1 million euros, down 14% year over year, and gross cash of 9.9 million euros at the end of June, down from 15.5 million euros at the end of 2025. The company said sales of its latest game, Aphelion, came in below its expectations and weighed on the half. It repeated that there is significant uncertainty about its ability to keep operating past Jan. 31, 2027, the same warning it raised in September.
Up to 85 jobs in France
The court protection sits on top of a restructuring Don’t Nod announced on Sept. 1. That plan refocuses the French business around a single production line and could cut up to 85 positions in France, according to the company. Don’t Nod says its Montreal studio is not affected; that team is building a narrative game based on a major Netflix property under a partnership the company counts among its recent wins.
Guilbert said the company knows the toll this period takes on its teams, especially the staff affected by the reorganization, and said the company would handle it responsibly, through dialogue and with support for the people involved. Don’t Nod says it will keep the market updated as the procedure moves forward.
