Embracer Group, the Swedish firm that bought up a number of known talents and gaming properties during the pandemic years, has canceled a Deus Ex game at its Eidos studio in Montreal, Canada, according to Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier.
The game, while not officially announced, has been known about since May 2022. It was due to enter production later in 2024 and had seen two years of pre-production development, according to Schreier’s sources. Many employees will be laid off as part of the cancellation.
Embracer Group acquired Eidos Montreal, along with Crystal Dynamics and Square Enix Montreal, for $300 million in mid-2022, buying up all of Japanese game publisher Square Enix’s Western game studios. That gave Embracer the keys to several influential and popular series, including Tomb Raider, Just Cause, Life Is Strange, and Deus Ex.
Eidos published the first Deus Ex from developer Ion Storm, founded by id Software’s John Romero and Tom Hall. Gaming legend Warren Spector oversaw the development of the original Deus Ex, merging shooters, stealth, and open-world RPG game mechanics in a way that, for the year 2000, was wholly original. The game is often cited as one of the best PC games of all time and a progenitor of many immersive sims and RPG-inflected shooters to come.
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