Eidos-Montréal, the Embracer-owned studio currently providing support on Microsoft’s Fable reboot, is laying off “up to” 75 members of staff, insisting it doesn’t “have the capacity to entirely reallocate them to our other ongoing projects and services.”
News of the layoffs – which follows 97 job cuts at Eidos-Montréal last year – was confirmed in a statement shared on social media. “Today, we informed our studio staff that we are going to let go up to 75 valuable members,” the studio wrote, “as one of our mandates is coming to an end. It is not a reflection of their dedication or skills, but unfortunately, we don’t have the capacity to entirely reallocate them to our other ongoing projects and services.
“These very talented, highly experienced experts are going to enter the employment market,” the studio continued, “and we are working to support them through this transition. Eidos-Montréal stays committed to deliver its other projects currently in development.”
Eidos-Montréal’s most recent game, Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy, released in 2021 when the studio was still owned by publisher Square Enix. Following its purchase by Embracer Group in 2022, however, it was reportedly set to work creating a new game in the Deus Ex series – a project that was canned last year amid a devastating programme of “restructuring” and cost cutting at Embracer Group that resulted in over 4500 job losses across the company.
Since then, it’s been confirmed Eidos-Montréal is assisting Microsoft’s Playground Games as the studio attempts to get its long-awaited – and recently delayed – Fable reboot over the finish line. Its unclear what Eidos-Montréal’s “other projects” mentioned in today’s statement might be.
Layoffs, of course, continue to blight the games industry following an already devastating few years which have seen over 25,000 employees lose their jobs since the start of 2023. So far this year, 1200 layoffs have been recorded, affecting workers across the likes of Unity, PlayStation, Ubisoft, Warner Bros. Games, HiRez Studios, Sumo Digital, Splash Damage, Bossa Studios, Night School, and Cyan, Inc. Results of a GDC’s State of the Games Industry survey shared earlier this year revealed one in 10 of the 3000 developers canvassed were laid off in 2024.