Following layoffs at Crystal Dynamics, Eidos-Montréal has followed suit, as it’s turned into a support studio for other companies’ games.
In retrospect, it was optimistic to expect a studio like Eidos-Montréal to thrive under new ownership, after Square Enix sold it and its IPs to Embracer Group in 2022.
Fans hoped they’d be allowed to return to dormant franchises like Legacy Of Kain and Deus Ex but the studio has had no major releases since. Instead, it’s currently serving as a support studio on two Xbox projects: Grounded 2 (which is in early access) and the upcoming Fable reboot.
Now, the studio has been hit with layoffs, losing approximately a dozen employees, as reports emerge of multiple cancelled projects, including another attempt at a Legacy Of Kain reboot.
The news emerged from a Reddit post claiming to have found mentions of a cancelled dark fantasy action role-playing game on a couple of CVs of former Eidos employees; one ‘focused on reviving an established vampire IP.’
The natural assumption is that this is referring to Legacy Of Kain, but it turns out that is only half right. According to an Insider Gaming report, there was indeed a Legacy Of Kain reboot in the works, but it was cancelled some years ago.
In fact, it was cancelled not long after Eidos was acquired by Embracer Group in 2022, having only spent a year in development. The Legacy Of Kain IP was then transferred to Crystal Dynamics.
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This is not the first time there’s been an attempt at a Legacy Of Kain revival. Back in 2013, it was reported that no less than 10 new games had been cancelled in the past 20 years.
Apparently, Eidos-Montréal has had to abandon many other projects (upwards of eight of them) since then. This could also include a new Deus Ex, that was rumoured to be in the very early stages of development in 2022.
Remasters of Legacy Of Kain: Soul Reaver and its sequel did come out last year, but those were handled by Aspyr and given the layoffs, it’s extremely unlikely they’ll pave way for a new game.
Instead, everything points to Eidos-Montréal shifting into more of a support role, especially when it already suffered layoffs last year.
Things are no better at Tomb Raider maker Crystal Dynamics. It’s supposedly still busy with a new Tomb Raider and even that seems to be struggling given how little info there’s been since its 2021 announcement. Crystal Dynamics also lost upwards of 30 employees last month.
Embracer has been repeatedly accused of mismanagement, taking advantage of the industry industry boom caused by the pandemic and buying up multiple studios without any obvious idea of what to do with them.
Since that streak of acquisitions, Embracer has seen routine layoffs, cancelled multiple unannounced games, and shut down multiple studios – including Saints Row developer Volition.
‘I’m sure I deserve a lot of criticism, but I don’t think my team or companies deserve all the criticism. I could take a lot of that blame myself,’ admitted CEO Lars Wingefors to GamesIndustry.biz last year.
With both Eidos and Crystal Dynamics floundering under Embracer, the only hope for the developers may be to buy themselves out and go independent, just like Saber Interactive managed last year.
That may not be feasible, but one of Netflix’s development studios, Spry Fox, managed exactly that this month, after having been acquired by the streaming company in 2022.
Spry Fox is working on an online multiplayer game called Spirit Crossing, but with Netflix’s interest in making its own games dwindling, co-founders David Edery and Daniel Cook were once again able to take control of their own studio.
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