Yesterday, Eidos Montreal revealed a fresh wave of layoffs, affecting 124 employees at the studio (with its head, David Anfossi, also leaving). It was a shocking revelation, especially since it came mere months after the last round of redundancies. However, Insider Gaming’s Tom Henderson spoke to sources that revealed it was due to the recently cancelled P11, known internally as “Wildlands.”
Rumors first emerged about it last December, and it was seemingly responsible for layoffs at the time. However, the project has allegedly been in the works since early 2019. Cue the gamut of trouble development tropes, from constantly changing engines (four in total throughout), a massive budget (which apparently went “well beyond nine figures”) and “narrative direction conflicts.”
The development costs are also reportedly responsible for the cancellation of a new Deus Ex title. Henderson describes Wildlands as an “open-world third-person action-adventure game” with a protagonist named River. Possessing a companion/mount known as “Redheart,” she’s part of the Spiritbounds and seemingly works to stave off “bad spirits.”
If all internal troubles weren’t enough, Wildlands was allegedly “almost complete.” “It has recently passed key milestones and was in the debugging phase, with a tentative release date planned for later this year,” wrote Henderson. So why the cancellation? He believes that Embracer (which owns Eidos Montreal) may have soured on it. Why so late? Your guess is as good as ours.
Regardless, it’s another heavy blow to the studio, which has already suffered numerous rounds of layoffs, and where it goes from here remains to be seen.
