Recent reports have shown that Thief developer Eidos Montreal has laid off 27 people. Along with Thief, Eidos Montreal is the famous developer behind the well received Deus Ex: Human Revolution. Now, earlier reports claimed more were fired, however, their parent company Square Enix has confirmed it was 27. Thief, the highly anticipated remake to the classic first person stealth game, was released to average reviews; its average Metacritic score across all platforms was lower than 70 out of 100. On top of this, it received mixed scores from the top gaming reviewers: IGN, GameSpot, and Rev3 Games.
But Kotaku claims that a number of sources reported that Thief had a troubling developmental period, which could be the reason why Thief received mixed scores. Also, it is important to point out that in October Eidos Montreal canceled an unannounced game that was connected to Eidos’ parent company Square Enix. While the cancelled game was unknown, it was rumored to be a brand new intellectual property.
So with a recently cancelled IP and a poorly received Thief, it is not surprising that Square Enix fired 27 employees. Unfortunately, this is the way the video game business works and layoffs are a casualty of making million dollar games. With that said, Square Enix released a statement in regards to these reports:
“Yes it is true we’ve let 27 people go today, unfortunately it’s something that every major studio has to do sometimes in order to ensure you have the right set up for current and future projects. It’s never a nice thing to do but we are genuinely trying to offer as much support as much as we can. We’re trying to re-locate as many people as possible into other roles here or at our other studios and we’ve been in touch several studios in Montreal to arrange a career day for those affected by this. We’re very thankful for all their hard work and we sincerely wish them well.”
At the moment, it is unsure if these layoffs will hinder any chances for a Deus Ex or Thief sequel. If there are any updates, Gamer Headlines will let you know. What do you think of these recent layoffs and was Thief as bad as critics have said?
Source: Kotaku