While there have been many reports about the cancellation of games in various stages of development at Eidos Montreal, Insider Gaming’s Tom Henderson has offered some clarification on the idea that it might have cancelled 10 different projects over the last six years. In a social media post, Henderson said that the recent lay-offs at the studio were related to the studio’s next title, known internally as P11.
He also went on to note that the studio uses the same internal naming system – the letter P followed by a number – for all projects it works on, regardless of whether it’s their own games or if the studio is supporting another developer for a game. This means that games that Eidos Montreal supported the development of, which include Fable, Grounded 2 and OD, all have similar code names of P followed by a number.
The studio is reportedly on P22 right now, but that doesn’t mean it has cancelled 10 internal projects. Rather, Henderson noted that the cancellations numbered around “half a dozen”. These cancelled projects include a Deus Ex game and a reboot of Legacy of Kain. He also noted that the recent revelations about cancelled projects are from a couple of years ago.
Henderson spoke about this recently, discussing the number of projects in the works at Eidos Montreal, as well as the fact that it is currently winding down development on a major project. This project, he noted, is going to be an open-world third-person action adventure game, with the team behind it being the same one that previously worked on Shadow of the Tomb Raider.
He went on to note that the recent lay-offs were specifically related to P11. “So you know, like conceptualisation, and all of the systems and all that kind of stuff has been complete, and they’re gearing up for beta, and that game is scheduled to release next year,” he explained.
As for what other projects might have been in the works at Eidos Montreal over the last few years, he also spoke about a game based on The Lord of the Rings which was seemingly going to be an attempt at cashing in on the IP since the Embracer Group has the rights to develop games based on it.
“So it seems like they’re just trying to cash in on that particular IP,” he said. “I don’t blame them or whatever, but it was related to that project. It didn’t really go far in development. It was a Lord of the Rings card game with a Telltale spin, like a story spin on it is how it was described to me. The cancellations were related to that particular project.”
Rumours had also recently indicated that Eidos Montreal was at one point working on a reboot of classic story-centric action adventure title Legacy of Kain. While there were no specifics, the CV of a recently laid-off employee listed work on a “dark fantasy ARPG” that would have served as a revival of an established IP revolving around vampires.
