The video game industry has started 2024 in a rather complicated way. Thousands of developers are losing their jobs and the latest studio to join this difficult situation is Eidos Montreal. The Canadian team, through your official account on X (formerly Twitter), confirmed that they had to let go of 97 employees. It is worth mentioning that Jason Schreier, journalist for Bloomberghad already reported the news minutes before, adding that a new game of Deux Ex it was cancelled.
“For the past 17 years, our teams at Eidos have worked on some of the most beloved brands in the industry, combining deep storytelling and innovation in unique games. We have created memorable experiences and won multiple awards that we are proud of, because we know that our team members have put their heart and soul into all of them.
The global economic context, as well as the challenges of our industry and the comprehensive restructuring announced by Embracer, have finally impacted our studio. “The difficult decision has been made to let go of 97 people from the development, administration and support services teams.”
Eidos Montreal.
Goodbye to the new game Deus Ex
Despite the negative outlook, Eidos Montreal is committed to continuing to make games based on its best-known intellectual properties. However, this part of the statement is questioned because, according to BloombergEmbracer not only laid off almost a hundred employees, it also canceled the next delivery of Deus Ex.
Although there was not much information about it, there was a lot of expectation for what was new in the franchise. The previous two titles, Deus Ex: Human Revolution and Deus Ex: Mankind Dividedhad an excellent reception by the specialized press and by the players themselves.
The worst of all is that, supposedly, the new Deus Ex It was already two years in development., a considerable period of time that has gone to waste. Today, not only the future of Deus Ex is uncertain, as is that of Eidos Montreal and that of the Embracer Group itself.
Embracer, from problem to problem
During 2021, Embracer began an aggressive acquisition campaign. He started buying Gearbox (Borderlands) after disbursing 1.3 billion dollars. A year later, he took over Square Enix’s western studios. Specifically, Crystal Dynamics, Eidos-Montreal and Square Enix Montreal. Therefore, franchises like tomb Raider, Deus Ex, Thief and Legacy of Kain They became part of its intellectual property catalogue.
The jewel in the crown came in August 2022, when they announced that almost all the rights to The Lord of the rings Now they belonged to them.
As of May 2023, however, its debacle began. The company lost half of its value on the stock market because They could not close an agreement that would have allowed them to receive an investment close to 2,000 million dollars. Thus, Embracer has been suffering all kinds of financial problems since then. Sadly, today Eidos and Deux Ex They were hurt, but you can be sure that they will not be the last.