Tuesday, March 31st 2026
Eidos Montreal Cancels Unannounced Open-World Adventure Game 7 Years in Development as Studio Rocked by Layoffs
Eidos Montreal announced earlier this week in a LinkedIn post that it was laying off 124 of its employees and that its studio director, David Anfossi was leaving. The studio explained that the layoffs are a result of necessary cost-cutting measures and evolving project needs. The layoffs would affect both production and support teams, and the studio says that they are necessary cuts to allow the studio to concentrate its efforts where it can be most effective. Now, new reporting seems to suggest that the layoffs may have been partially caused by a game whose budget had ballooned and caused financial strain in the studio.
Following the layoffs, Insider Gaming reports that Eidos, who had previously worked on Deus Ex: Mankind Divided and Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy, has also cancelled Wildlands, an in-development open-source action-adventure game that the studio had been working on for seven years. The publication reports that WIldlands had had a somewhat troubled development cycle prior to its cancellation, with the team having gone through four different game engines and burned through hundreds of millions of dollars in budget. These reports are further backed up by Jason Schreier's comments on Reddit. Further, according to Insider Gaming's sources, the game was in the debugging phase and nearing completion before Embracer, Eidos's parent company, shut it down.
Sources:
Eidos-Montreal on LinkedIn, Insider Gaming
Following the layoffs, Insider Gaming reports that Eidos, who had previously worked on Deus Ex: Mankind Divided and Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy, has also cancelled Wildlands, an in-development open-source action-adventure game that the studio had been working on for seven years. The publication reports that WIldlands had had a somewhat troubled development cycle prior to its cancellation, with the team having gone through four different game engines and burned through hundreds of millions of dollars in budget. These reports are further backed up by Jason Schreier's comments on Reddit. Further, according to Insider Gaming's sources, the game was in the debugging phase and nearing completion before Embracer, Eidos's parent company, shut it down.
15 Comments on Eidos Montreal Cancels Unannounced Open-World Adventure Game 7 Years in Development as Studio Rocked by Layoffs
SR22, there was a decent game buried under the horrible characters and writing, and knowing what they were planning before Embracer's meddling makes it even more sad.
Embracer's CEO should wear a dunce hat for life
I just don't understand these people.
so no one said it needs x weeks to finish and let us finish it? 7 years of idling when other companies finish games quicker or reduce the scope of the game
Brother, near-complete games get cancelled all the time. Hell, sometimes, like with Creative Assembly and Hyenas, already DONE games that are ready to ship get cancelled. It’s a mirror of the situation when the game is obviously not done and needs time, but gets released anyway because “muh financial quarter”. The gaming industry is really THIS dumb.
FF15 another attempt at open world had a horrible development time line, at some point square enix got impatient, and changed the project leadership which led to features being dropped, and a streamlined process to get it out of the door.
The released game was odd for a FF game, lots of missing story events, where had to watch some movies to understand it all, an open world that was largely empty, and only partially open world, best part of the game (at least in my opinion, against popular opinion) was the infamous linear chapter 13.
However this game proved to be probably the most supported JRPG SE have ever done in terms of post launch development, lots of DLC, lots of updates to the game, which included a major update that could be argued as a game rewrite. Some DLC filled story plot holes, some cut scenes added from the movies, final chapter completely redone greatly extending it. Originally only the main character could be controlled in battle, they introduced switching characters, and more.
It proved a game can survive rough development. Originally I had little love for FF15, partially because of its 1.0 release state, and partially because of the continued shift to real time combat. But over time I have warmed to it more, and especially when you consider the disaster of FF16, you do at least appreciate that in FF15 the attempt that was made to preserve classic JRPG elements.