The new, unannounced Deus Ex game has been canceled by Embracer Group, with 97 employees laid off from developer Eidos Montreal. Embracer Group, a gaming company that began purchasing various game studios and IPs in the 2010s and 2020s and investing heavily during the pandemic, made gaming headlines when it failed to secure a 2 billion dollar investment deal and subsequently began mass layoffs and game cancellations at its various studios since the beginning of 2023.
The cancellation news comes as a massive blow to fans of Deus Ex, which had its last release in 2016 with Deus Ex: Mankind Divided. The series began in 2000 with the original Deus Ex and Deus Ex: Invisible War (2003) which Ion Storm developed, followed by four more titles developed by Eidos-Montreal and published by Square Enix. In 2022, when Eidos-Montreal was purchased by Embracer Group, it became the publisher of all Eidos-Montreal media, including Deus Ex. The canceled Deus Ex game had been in pre-production for 2 years and was set to enter production later this year. Instead, the studio will focus on a new, original franchise.
In a statement made on X, formerly known as Twitter, Eidos Montreal announced it was laying off 97 members of staff from various teams, citing the “global economic context, the challenges of our industry and the comprehensive restructuring announced by Embracer” as reasons for the layoffs.
Over the past few years, Embracer Group has acquired countless game studios, from Square Enix Montreal to Gearbox Software, developer of the Borderlands franchise. Square Enix Montreal was completely shut down in November 2022, with Embracer announcing layoffs of 5% of employees across its various studios and cancelling 15 projects in November 2023.
Across the gaming industry, countless employees at various companies have been hit by mass layoffs, from League of Legends developer Riot Games to Microsoft.