While there have been many reports about games in various stages of development at Eidos Montreal being cancelled for one reason or another, Insider Gaming’s Tom Henderson has offered some clarification on the idea that the studio might have cancelled 10 different projects over the last six years. In a social media post, Henderson said that the recent lay-offs at the studio were related to the studio’s next title, known internally as P11.
He also went on to note that the studio uses the same internal naming system – the letter P followed by a number – for all projects it works on regardless of if they’re its own games or if the studio is supporting another developer for a game. This means that games that Eidos Montreal supported the development of, which include Fable, Grounded 2 and OD, all have similar code names of P followed by a number.
This also means that the fact that the studio is on P22 right now doesn’t mean that it has cancelled 10 internal projects. Rather, Henderson noted that the cancellations number at around “half a dozen”. These cancelled project include a Deus Ex game as well as a reboot of Legacy of Kain. He also noted that the recent revelations about cancelled projects all revolve around cancellations from a couple of years ago.
Henderson had spoken about this recently, discussing the number of projects that were in the works at Eidos Montreal, as well as the fact that it is currently in the midst of winding down development of a major project. This project, he noted, is going to be an open-world third-person action adventure game, with the team behind it being the same one that previously worked on Shadow of the Tomb Raider.
He went on to note that the recent lay-offs were specifically related to P11. “So you know like conceptualisation, and all of the systems and all that kind of stuff has been complete and they’re gearing up for beta and that game is scheduled tor release next year,” he explained.
As for what other projects might have been in the works at Eidos Montreal over the last few years, he also spoke about a game based on The Lord of the Rings which was seemingly going to be an attempt at cashing in on the IP since Embracer Group has the rights to develop games based on it.
“So it seems like they’re just trying to cash in on that particular IP,” he said. “I don’t blame them or whatever, but it was related to that project. It didn’t really go far in development. It was a Lord of the Rings card game with like a Telltale spin, like a story spin on it is how it was described to me. The cancellations were related to that particular project.”
Rumours had also recently indicated that Eidos Montreal was at one point working on a reboot of classic story-centric action adventure title Legacy of Kain. While no specifics were revealed, the CV of one of the recently laid-off employees from the studio listed having worked on a “dark fantasy ARPG” that would have served as a revival of an established IP that revolves around vampires.
