A new Deus Ex game was reportedly in the works for two years at Embracer’s Eidos Montreal before that project was canned this week. The scrapped game has resulted in the loss of 97 jobs as confirmed by Eidos Montreal. This follows ongoing restructuring efforts that have been occuring over at Embracer for over the past year, resulting in the closure of other studios including Saints Row developer Volition.
This news was originally reported by Bloomberg, where, thanks to anonymous sources on the project, the game was in development for about two years, following their acquisition from Embracer in 2022. Those that were not laid off and remain at Eidos Montreal will seemingly shift focus to an “original franchise” according to Bloomberg.
The Deus Ex game, though not officially announced, was originally expected to ramp up development this year, entering full production.
— Eidos-Montréal (@EidosMontreal) January 29, 2024
This year is already a big blow to those working in games, with many stories of layoffs across the industry, including Xbox and Microsoft deciding last week to lay off 1,900 gaming division employees. Sadly, there’ll likely be more of these stories to follow further into the year.
About the Author
Charlie Kelly
She/Her, They/Them
Charlie loves her video games as much as she loves dumb, charming JRPG protagonists: probably way too much. You can often catch her spending too much time being emotional over LGBT stories in games. She also thinks Yakuza 6 is the best one.
