Deus Ex game canceled as nearly 100 Eidos-Montreal employees were laid off
Deus Ex: Humanity divided And Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy developer Eidos-Montreal is laying off 97 people and reportedly canceling an unannounced Deus Ex game. Eidos-Montreal confirmed the layoffs on Xformerly Twitter, Monday following a Bloomberg report about the canceled game, which has reportedly been in development for two years.
“The global economic context, the challenges of our industry and the extensive restructuring announced by Embracer have finally impacted our studio,” Eidos-Montreal said on services.”
Reached for comment, an Eidos-Montreal representative pointed Polygon to the X post, but did not comment on the reportedly canceled Deus Ex game. Bloomberg reported that Eidos-Montreal will instead focus on “an original franchise.” Eidos-Montreal was originally a Square Enix studio – until that company sold Eidos, Crystal Dynamics and Square Enix Montreal to Embracer Group in 2022. The $300 million deal gave Embracer rights to Tomb Raider, Thief and Deus Ex, as well as ownership of more than 50 Square Enix games. Square Enix Montreal was briefly renamed before closing in 2022.
The last match of Eidos-Montreal is Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy. The last main game Deus Ex was published in 2016: Deus Ex: Humanity divided. According to Bloomberg, the studio had reportedly been working on the next game for the past two years.
Embracer is on a downward spiral after undergoing aggressive expansion in recent years, acquiring Borderlands developer Gearbox, 3D Realms and the rights to The Lord of the Rings in 2021 and 2022 alone. The major cracks began to show in June 2023 when Embracer announced it would close multiple studios and cancel several games, just weeks after the company announced a failed $2 billion deal with the Saudi -Arab investment fund Savvy Games. Hundreds of people have since been laid off from Embracer studios, including the entire staff of now-closed Saints Row developer Volition.
2022 and 2023 were devastating years for workers in the video game industry, with more than 10,000 layoffs according to industry watchers. But 2024 is unfortunately on its way to the next record: January isn’t even over yet and more than 6,000 gaming employees have already been laid off.