Insider Gaming’s Mike Straw reported via Insider Gaming Weekly that it’s been “very slow going,” with one source claiming “very little progress over months.” Another source reportedly said back in December that “The game, at this stage, is still looking to be years off from completion.”

It doesn’t necessarily mean that nothing has been made, as a “good portion” of the title is reportedly complete. But in the games industry, a scary amount of work goes into that final stretch, and Quantic Dream is allegedly lagging in that regard.

While the company reportedly discussed expanding its team, NetEase Games is apparently not interested (which would be in line with its divestment of various external studios, including Nagoshi Studio). Apparently, there’s some hope that revenue from Spellcasters Chronicles, the free-to-play competitive multiplayer that launched in Steam early access to a “Mixed” rating, will help.

“At this stage, the long-term outlook is less driven by creative capabilities and more by financial viability. Should Spellcasters fail commercially, NetEase is expected to reevaluate its commitment to the studio and could opt to discontinue further investment.” Unfortunately, with a lifetime peak of 888 concurrent players on Steam and only 86 in the past 24 hours, it seems that Spellcasters won’t be the savior that Quantic Dream is expecting.

As for Star Wars Eclipse, we’ll have to do what we’ve always done for more than four years – wait for more details. At least there’s concept art for some of the characters floating out there.

Celebrating this milestone, Quantic Dream president, writer and director David Cage has released his own statement about the impactful story of Detroit: Become Human, and how grateful he has been for the community garnered by the game. The fact that this milestone was reached after more than seven years after the original release, noted Cage, is a good indication of how much its story resonates with audiences.

“More than seven years after its release, Detroit: Become Human continues to resonate with audiences, bringing always more players together around the world,” said Cage. “What began as a reflection on choice, empathy, and humanity has become a shared journey for tens of millions of players. This milestone belongs to the community that believed in its story and carried it forward, and everyone at the studio is deeply grateful for their continued support.”

Studio CEO and head of publishing Guillaume de Fondaumière published his own statement celebrating the continued success of Detroit: Become Human. He also praised the power of the game’s story and how its themes encouraged players to reflect on it well after they rolled credits.

“This new milestone highlights the emotional resonance and lasting cultural impact of Detroit: Become Human. The game’s continued success across platforms, generations and continents speaks to the power of stories that place players at the heart of the experience, inviting them not only to play, but to reflect, question, and engage long after the credits roll.”

The last time we saw Quantic Dream celebrate a major sales milestone was back in October 2024 where it announced that Detroit: Become Human had sold more than 10 million units worldwide.

While Quantic Dream hasn’t released a game since Detroit: Become Human, the studio has confirmed that it is working on two distinct projects: the narrative-focused Star Wars Eclipse, which was announced back in 2021, and free-to-play 3v3 multiplayer game Spellcasters Chronicles.

Quantic Dream had last mentioned Star Wars Eclipse back in October, when Cage noted that development on the title has been continuing despite the studio’s silence about it. “Of course, development of Star Wars: Eclipse continues, and we are eager to share more with you in the future,” he said. While few details have been revealed about the game, its development has certainly taken quite a long time. 2024 even saw the game’s lead writer leaving the studio.

As for Spellcasters Chronicles, it was announced just a few months ago, and while Quantic Dream hasn’t yet confirmed a release date, the studio has provided a few details about its gameplay. The spell-focused PvP title will allow players to customize their role in matches by customising their deck of spells, with more than 50 different spells and summons being available. It will also feature a seasonal model that will impact its gameplay and lore.

As the name indicates, combat is heavily spell-focused, but you can also command “armies of hundreds,” including dragons, ogres, and skeletons. Each character is capable of fulfilling different roles by customizing a deck from over 50 spells and summons. You can also harness the power of Titans by controlling the battlefield and creating structures.

Of course, it wouldn’t be a free-to-play title without a seasonal model, with the developer hyping choices that will impact the “gameplay and lore.” Spellcasters Chronicles doesn’t have a release date or window, but you can register for the closed beta here, which will begin on Steam before the year ends.

For those keen on Quantic Dream’s single-player efforts, it has also recently confirmed that Star Wars Eclipse is still in development. While “eager” to showcase more, there’s still no release date or gameplay.

Unfortunately, Cage only provided a single line on its status. “Of course, development of Star Wars: Eclipse continues, and we are eager to share more with you in the future.” When and where remains to be seen, as usual.

The last official update from the studio was at Tokyo Game Show 2023, when Lisa Pende, Quantic Dream’s VP of marketing, said, “Can I say it still exists? Because it exists. It’s just not ready. It’s simmering.” Lead writer Adam Williams would depart the studio in 2024, and character concept art leaked earlier this year, showcasing a Rodian, Gungan, and Zenezian.

Platforms for Star Wars Eclipse have yet to be announced, so stay tuned for more updates. All we know is that it’s an action-adventure game set in the High Republic Era as players venture to the dangerous Outer Rim. Multiple characters are playable, and there’s even a branching narrative alongside a new species.

Details are sparse currently, with Cage noting that it would be “born from the same spirit of curiosity and creativity that has always defined us” and possibly “surprise our fans as it is very different from what we have done so far.” However, he added that, “Taking risks, challenging ourselves, exploring new ways of playing and telling stories, and attempting what seems impossible, has always been part of our DNA.”

The first concern that comes to mind is whether this competitive title will bring anything new to the table, especially in such a crowded market. Cage is seemingly aware of this and how “demanding it is to create something new. Earning the trust of players, standing out in such a competitive space, and introducing fresh concepts is incredibly challenging.

“And since we have no legacy in this genre, we know we have everything to prove — which is why your support and feedback will be essential. Together, we believe we can create something truly unique.” Time will tell what that means, but Cage says this is the “beginning of a new chapter for Quantic Dream” and that they couldn’t “wait to share what comes next.”

Though a competitive multiplayer title is new for the studio, it doesn’t seem to be shifting away from its bread and butter, as “Multiple teams are fully dedicated to crafting the next generation of great games.” Heavy Rain, Beyond: Two Souls and Detroit: Become Human have crossed more than 25 million players worldwide, so future narrative-focused single-player games seem a given – stay tuned for further announcements.

From the portfolio of one of the artists that has previously worked on Star Wars Eclipse, there are a total of 13 images. Each image comes with a filename that indicates that kind of character that the art was created for. There is concept art for a Gungan character, a Zenezian character, and a Rodian character. There are also a few pieces that have simply been titled Smuggler 1 and Smuggler 2. Interestingly, two of the concept art pieces have been named after specific characters.

The two characters, going by the concept art, are Travis and Jotraaaz Kammzzzek. The names, easily falling in line with other strange and alien-sounding names from throughout the Star Wars universe, would indicate that these two characters will play a more important role in the title’s narrative. The others, on the other hand, might be one-off NPCs that the player might get to only interact with one or two times.

It is worth noting that concept art for a game is typically created in very early stages of its development. This means that these images might also be quite updated, since games often go through many changes over the course of their development.

Quantic Dream has generally continued its silence when it comes to progress on the development of Star Wars Eclipse. However, back in February, studio CEO and head of publishing Guillaume de Fondaumière mentioned that Quantic Dream was unaffected by the studio closures that were going on at the time of various studios under NetEase. For context, NetEase announced its acquisition of Quantic Dream back in 2022.

“[Quantic president] David Cage and I would like to express our gratitude to the fans and friends who have reached out to us in recent days regarding Quantic Dream,” de Fondaumière wrote at the time. “We want to reassure everyone that our studios in Paris and Montreal remain unaffected. We are continuing to develop our projects at full pace, with several open positions available in both locations.”

Development of Star Wars Eclipse has also seemingly been a troubled one. Back in August 2024, lead writer Adam Williams had announced his departure from Quantic Dream. In his announcement, he revealed that he would be founding his own studio.

“After almost 10 years at Quantic Dream, I am leaving to found a new studio – together with a group of very talented designers and developers,” Williams wrote. “We can’t say too much just yet. We are working on something very innovative, very special and, for now, very secret. More on that soon.”

Star Wars Eclipse was announced all the way back in 2021. The game is in development for PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S.

In his statement, de Fondaumière revealed that Quantic Dreams itself has been unaffected by NetEase’s more recent moves, with both of its studios in Paris and Montreal working on their projects at “full pace”. de Fondaumière also said that he was “deeply saddened” about the recent layoffs and studio closures under NetEase.

“[Quantic president] David Cage and I would like to express our gratitude to the fans and friends who have reached out to us in recent days regarding Quantic Dream,” de Fondaumière wrote. “We want to reassure everyone that our studios in Paris and Montreal remain unaffected. We are continuing to develop our projects at full pace, with several open positions available in both locations.”

de Fondaumière has also referred to NetEase as a dedicated partner that has allowed Quantic Dream to pursue its projects with the creative freedom and financial backing it has needed. After having initially partnered up with NetEase back in 2019 where the firm acquired a minority stake in Quantic Dream, the studio was fully acquired by NetEase in 2022.

Interestingly, de Fondaumière also refers to 2024 as a period with the highest revenue in Quantic Dream’s history, thanks to high sales of titles like Detroit: Become Human. The title had sold 11 million copies globally across both PC and PlayStation, which was a 2 million rise year-on-year.

“The developments of our current projects are progressing as planned, and we are fully committed to delivering and launching these innovative, high-quality titles in the future,” wrote de Fondaumière to cap things off.

Rebel Wolves co-owner and chief publishing officer Tomasz Tinc posted a similar statement earlier this week, revealing that NetEase’s actions haven’t affected the studio yet, and development on The Blood of Dawnwalker was fully funded and was going on as expected.

“First and foremost, thank you for all the warm messages and wishes,” wrote Tinc in his statement. “The development of our game is progressing steadily and we’re facing no financial issues.”

“The Blood of Dawnwalker‘s production is fully funded, and we work alongside our partners and friends from Bandai Namco, our game’s global publisher, to bring the first chapter of the Dawnwalker saga to life.”

Similarly, Anchor Point Studios boss Paul Ehreth also spoke about the relatively new studio being unaffected by NetEase’s studio closures. Ehreth said that the studio was “still full steam ahead building our game.”

“So far, NetEase has been a great partner for us, giving us creative control and development support, and we look forward to the prospect of shipping an exceptional game together in the future,” he wrote. “While it may be stormy seas at the moment for the industry, we are very much still growing, and we have several positions open for anyone looking for a safe harbor.”

Taking to Twitter, Guillaume de Fondaumière – co-CEO and co-founder of Quantic Dream – recently announced that Detroit: Become Human has now sold over 10 million units worldwide.

“We are extremely grateful to each and everyone out there who played the game,” he wrote. “You mean the world to us and we couldn’t have achieved this incredible milestone without every single one of you!”

The adventure title originally launched in 2018 for PS4, where it was published by Sony, while a year later, Quantic Dream went on to self-publish the title on PC. 

In December of last year, the studio announced that Detroit: Become Human had sold over 9 million units. With another million units sold in less than a year since then, it’s clearly maintaining solid momentum where sales are concerned. 

Quantic Dream is currently working on Star Wars Eclipse, which was announced in 2021 but has seen no updates since then, with reports alleging consistent behind-the-scenes development issues.

For starters, The Plucky Squire, which is due out next week, will also be available via PlayStation Plus Game Catalog day and date, as previously announced. It will be joined by a handful of acclaimed narrative-driven adventure games in the form of Night in the Woods, Road 96, and Under the Waves, The Farm 51’s survival horror action RPG Chernobylite, 7v7 arcade football game Wild Card Football, Ubisoft’s open world first-person shooter Far Cry 5, colourful action-adventure title Ben 10, and voxel-based sci-fi sandbox game Space Engineers.

Additionally, PlayStation Plus Premium subscribers will also get access to a PS VR2 title in the form of Pistol Whip, and some returning legacy titles with Secret Agent Clank, Sky Gunner, and Mister Mosquito. All aforementioned titles will become available starting September 17.

NOTE: This interview was conducted prior to the game’s launch.

"For the longest time we’ve wanted to create a game that took the visual language of comic books and brought it to interactive, animated life. With Dustborn, I believe we’ve succeeded."

Dustborn has a visually very striking art style. How did you settle on this look for the game?

Here at Red Thread Games, we’re big comics fans. I’ve personally read comics my whole life, and still do — although there hasn’t been a lot of spare time these past few years.

For the longest time we’ve wanted to create a game that took the visual language of comic books and brought it to interactive, animated life. With Dustborn, I believe we’ve succeeded, largely because of art director Christoffer Grav’s background in illustration and graphic design. His art style and direction has been central to the game’s development.

Not only does Dustborn look like a comic book; we also tell the backstory of the characters through an in-game comic (which also exists in printed form for those who bought a physical copy), and at the end of every chapter you get an illustrated recap of the game’s events — great for reminding players what’s happened, especially if they stop playing for a little while. It’s like those “previously on” segments you see before a new TV episode.

Dustborn was made with the Unity engine, so we had to write our own shaders to accomplish the unique look… and we plan to continue this style with one of our upcoming (and unannounced) games.

The setting of the game sounds incredibly unique. What were your inspirations for the game’s story?

Oh, there are so many influences, it’s hard to name them all — but the story was heavily inspired by real-world events in the past decade. There’s a growing political and societal division between people, not just in North America and Western Europe, but across the globe. Part of this divide is due to social media and the spread of mis- and disinformation. We wanted to tell a story where this theme — the power of words, and how language can be weaponized — was central to both the narrative and the game mechanics.

We were also inspired by games like the Yakuza/Like a Dragon series — which has done such a great job mixing genres and play-styles, and balancing a serious story with lots of silliness in a unique and interesting way — and by Final Fantasy 15, and Life is Strange: True Colors.

On the comic book front, The X-Men is an obvious source of inspiration, along with Preacher and Transmetropolitan — and many others. We obviously dug deep into our collection to see how we could use that visual language in a video game.

But Dustborn was also informed by our love of road trips and the desire to tell a story about a journey across an alternate history North America, visiting different locations and biomes along the road, and spending time with a diverse group of characters inspired by our own personal experiences.

Will players be able to influence the story through their action? We know you can have branching relationships with the other characters, but does that influence the main narrative?

To some degree, yes; each major character in the game receives their own ending, informed by Pax’s words and actions, and some scenes play out differently based on how you decide to solve problems, and on the characters’ current emotional state. The game really isn’t about those major narrative branches — it’s much more about the little things, about how people feel and react, how they respond to your dialogue choices — but you can certainly influence the plot in a variety of ways, and there’s room for replay.

"There are so many influences, it’s hard to name them all — but the story was heavily inspired by real-world events in the past decade."

One of the things Dustborn promises is a lot of varying gameplay mechanics depending on the location and what’s going on in the story. How deep can players expect the different gameplay mechanics to be?

Honestly, Dustborn is more about variety, joy and delight than deep game mechanics. There’s combat, there’s a music rhythm action game, there’s something we call “Echo recording”… along with lots of mini-games. Our goal was to keep players on their toes, constantly, and to mix genres, vibes, tones and moods, and to make the game easy and accessible for narrative players to get through the story — not to make a hard-core game that’s particularly challenging.

That said, there’s depth if you go looking for it and invest the time. The combat system, for example, allows you to upgrade your magnetic flying bat (!) in three different ways, using discarded tech you collect during exploration. You also craft new “Shouts”, which are used in combat, and combined with your crew’s powers unlock new combos. And the music game has different completion levels, based on your performance — and these affect the dialogue in the game.

The central gameplay mechanic – using words to fight and solve all sorts of problems in the game – sounds incredibly intriguing. What can you tell us more about it? How did the idea for it as a gameplay mechanic first come about?

This is the central theme of the game: words have power, and we have to be careful about how we wield and weaponize them. This ties back to how social media has become such a powerful force in our lives, and how information — including mis- and disinformation — affect us all, culturally, politically, spiritually, emotionally. We wanted to make a game where that theme manifested as a game mechanic, and that’s how the idea of Vocals (or “Vox”) came about. Pax and her crew can use their Vox — powerful words — to manipulate people and fight enemies.

It sounds like music plays an important role in this game. Could you elaborate more on what players can expect?

Music does play a large role in Dustborn. Pax and her crew pose as a punk-rock band on their journey across America, and you have to both write new songs and perform them at venues along the road. Your performance affects the story in small ways; you don’t have to be good at it, but there’s room to practice and improve, and to expand your set list.

Our composer and audio director Simon Poole was a key person on the creative team, and the game’s score was written alongside the design and development of the rest of the game — we believe that sound and music are crucial to the player experience, and the audio and soundscape are also closely connected to the game’s meta-story, which is about the origins of language itself.

"This is the central theme of the game: words have power, and we have to be careful about how we wield and weaponize them."

Roughly how long will an average playthrough of the game be?

If you rush through the game, you can probably complete the story in 12-15 hours — maybe less, if you’re rude to everyone and cut them off! But if you take your time with every conversation, get to know each character, explore all locations fully, look for collectibles and enjoy the journey, you could easily spend 20 hours or more on this road trip.

Do you have any plans to bring the game to the Switch, or perhaps its upcoming successor?

Not to the original Switch, no, but we’re very interested in Nintendo’s next console, and if Dustborn performs well, I wouldn’t be surprised if we announce something in the first half of 2025!