Megan Ellison’s Annapurna Pictures and a division announced in December 2016.

Annapurna Interactive began as a new department inside a film company. Variety reported on 1 December 2016 that Annapurna Pictures had created a division devoted to producing and publishing video games, had hired a staff of games-industry veterans for it, and already had several deals in the works. The division, the report said, would focus on “personal, emotional and original games”. Wikipedia gives the legal name as Annapurna Games, LLC, trading as Annapurna Interactive, and the founding date as 1 December 2016.

The parent company belonged to Megan Ellison. Wikipedia says she founded Annapurna Pictures in Los Angeles on 2 April 2011, and that the company is named after the Annapurna range of the Himalayas, where she trekked in Nepal after leaving film school. In the 2016 Variety report Ellison, described as Annapurna’s founder and chief executive, said she had long had a passion for video games and named Nintendo’s The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time from 1998 among her favourites. The new division, Variety said, was located at the company’s headquarters in West Hollywood.

The team mixed film and games backgrounds. Variety listed two executives who already worked for Annapurna, the production executive Neale Hemrajani and head of technology James Masi, and four hired specifically for the division: Nathan Gary and Deborah Mars, both from Sony’s PlayStation group in America, Hector Sanchez, a former producer at PlayStation and Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, and Jeff Legaspi, previously at Santa Monica Studio. Wikipedia adds that Jenova Chen acted as an adviser, and that some of the division’s early titles had been in development under Santa Monica Studio’s external development group.

The opening slate was announced with the division. Variety said two games were aimed at spring 2017: Jason Roberts’s Gorogoa, a hand-illustrated puzzle story in which players move panels on a grid, and Giant Sparrow’s What Remains of Edith Finch, described as a playable collection of short stories about the Finch family. It added plans to release games from the San Francisco developer Funomena with Keita Takahashi, and from Mountains, the studio led by Ken Wong. The Verge reported on 24 October 2017 that Wong’s studio was ready to reveal its release for Annapurna, Florence, a visual novel about relationships, introducing Annapurna to its readers as the film company behind Her and American Hustle.

An in-house studio, an acquisition and new leaders.

The catalogue grew year by year. Wikipedia lists What Remains of Edith Finch in 2017, Donut County in 2018, Outer Wilds, Sayonara Wild Hearts, Wattam and Telling Lies in 2019, Kentucky Route Zero in 2020, and Neon White and Stray in 2022. It says limited-edition box sets of several of these games were produced with iam8bit for PlayStation 4 in late 2020, with a similar set for Nintendo Switch in late 2023.

The division then began making games itself. GamesIndustry.biz reported on 29 October 2020 that Annapurna Interactive had created an internal development studio in Los Angeles and was recruiting a game director and senior producer for an unannounced project. Its president, Nathan Gary, said many of the team had come from internal development backgrounds and were excited to make it part of the company. The same report said Annapurna had signed a multi-year deal earlier that year with Simogo, the Swedish developer of Sayonara Wild Hearts, and that Nathan Vella, formerly president of Capy Games, had joined the publisher’s leadership in May 2020. Wikipedia says a further internal studio, headed by Chelsea Hash, was announced in June 2022, and that in November 2023 the company acquired the South African support studio 24 Bit Games.

Leadership changed in 2024. The Hollywood Reporter reported on 21 January 2025 that, in September 2024, Annapurna had said Nathan Gary, then its president, would leave along with Deborah Mars and Nathan Vella, the co-heads of the indie games division. The same report said Ellison had named Leanne Loombe, previously at Netflix’s games division and before that at Riot and EA, as executive vice president and head of games, responsible for publishing, development and creative work on the games slate. Loombe reports to Hector Sanchez, one of the division’s original 2016 hires, who had returned from Epic in the summer of 2024 as president of Interactive and New Media. Loombe told the magazine she wanted to build on Annapurna’s history as a home for developers pushing the boundaries of storytelling.

The Reporter said Sanchez would continue to oversee the wider games strategy and partnerships with other Annapurna departments to adapt game properties for film and television, noting an agreement to adapt Control and Alan Wake for the screen and an animated film based on Stray in development. Wikipedia lists releases continuing in 2025, among them Wanderstop in March and Lego Voyagers in September.

A mountain name and a publisher’s shelf.

A game studio’s identity usually reaches players before the game does. The company logo appears on a splash screen or a short animated ident in the seconds while software loads, then again on store pages, trailers, packaging and the credits. Because those seconds repeat every time someone opens a game, the ident tends to be short, legible on a phone or a television, and quiet enough that it does not compete with the title that follows. Animation studios use the same device in front of their films, often with a brief piece of motion or a sound cue that returns from release to release.

Much of the visible branding, though, belongs to the work rather than the company. Characters, mascots and title logos carry the recognition, and a studio name may sit underneath them in small type. Some companies let a recurring character stand in for the studio; others keep the studio mark plain so that each new game or film can look different. Ownership changes add another layer: when a studio is bought or becomes independent, the parent’s mark may appear beside its own or drop away. For designers, the practical point is that a studio identity is a set of placements — a splash screen, a store icon, a credit line, a website — and each needs a version of the mark that works at its size and in its moment.

One name for films and games, and a list built on authors.

Annapurna Interactive shares its name with its parent, and the name itself comes from a place. Wikipedia’s account of Annapurna Pictures says Megan Ellison named the company after the Annapurna range she trekked in Nepal. When the games division was announced in December 2016, Variety placed it alongside the parent’s recent films, including Mike Mills’s 20th Century Women, which was to be released that year by A24. The games label extended the film company’s name rather than inventing a new one, and the word Interactive marked the new medium.

The stated mission was editorial. Variety quoted the division’s aim of publishing “personal, emotional and original games” that push the boundaries of interactive content, and Ellison’s hope that artists across the medium would make Annapurna Interactive their home. Eight years later, Leanne Loombe used similar language when she joined, telling The Hollywood Reporter in January 2025 that she wanted to build on Annapurna’s history as a home for developers pushing the boundaries of storytelling.

That approach shows in how the label introduces its games: by their makers. Variety named the developers behind its opening slate, Jason Roberts, Giant Sparrow, Funomena with Keita Takahashi, and Ken Wong’s Mountains, rather than a house style. The Verge, announcing Florence in October 2017, led with Wong’s own explanation that the game was designed for people who do not play many games and may feel some trepidation about them. The physical box sets made with iam8bit in 2020 and 2023, which Wikipedia describes, gathered several of these games together under the Annapurna name.

The link between the film and games sides has grown more direct over time. The Hollywood Reporter wrote in January 2025 that Hector Sanchez oversees partnerships with other Annapurna departments to adapt game properties for film and television, including an animated film based on Stray. The same name now appears on films, on independent games and on adaptations moving between them.

For a design guide, Annapurna Interactive shows how a games label can borrow an established parent name and build its identity through the developers it publishes rather than through a loud house look. Compare Devolver Digital, another publisher of independent games, and A24, which released Annapurna’s 20th Century Women. For this guide we use summit gold, ridge slate and high night with a serif, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

Keep Annapurna Interactive’s identity on hand — save it to a board in the Made Good inspiration library.