There is always a bright side to every cloudy situation. Unfortunately, the cloud that hung over today was caused by a report that was published by Jason Schreier on Bloomberg. The article indicated that Onoma, formerly known as Square Enix Montreal, will be closing its doors. The employees at Onoma, who had just relaunched the studio three weeks prior, were taken completely by surprise by this news.
Schreier claims that Eidos Montreal, where some of Onoma’s staff will be transferred, is busily developing a new Deus Ex game. This is the silver lining to the cloud that Onoma’s closure has brought.
Schreier confirmed in a series of follow-up tweets to his initial report that the Stranger Things-inspired kids on bikes game would be shelved, but at the same time Eidos recommitted to developing a new Deus Ex game.
However, since the development of the game is still in its very, very early stages, there is not much else to say about it at this time. Reportedly, Eidos is also working on a new intellectual property that was recently rescoped, and the company is also co-developing games with Xbox, one of which being the future installment of the Fable series.
The intellectual property associated with Deus Ex was only recently returned to Eidos’s possession. When Square Enix sold Eidos to Embracer Group in May, there was considerable uncertainty regarding the ownership of the brands, which are typically just as valuable as the studios that generated them.
However, it was ultimately determined that Square Enix would retain ownership of the franchises. As a result, crystal Dynamics and Eidos made the exciting announcement in September that they had formally acquired the Tomb Raider and Deus Ex franchises, respectively, which paves the path for the development of additional games in these cherished series.
