Eidos Montreal – the studio behind games like Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy – has undertaken a new round of lay-offs. While the company itself hasn’t made any statement on the matter, confirmation of the lay-offs have come courtesy of former employees having posted about it on LinkedIn. One such post came courtesy of former gameplay director at the studio, Samuel Daher.
“Hey there! Was working at Eidos, loved it and would have stayed, but times are difficult,” posted Daher. “I’m eager to find a new professional home to drive design on new productions.”
This latest round of lay-offs is the second one to have hit Eidos Montreal after the company confirmed back in April that it was letting go 75 of its employees. At the time, the studio said that the lay-offs happened because it wasn’t able to find spots for the affected employees in other parts of the studio.
“Today, we informed our studio staff that we are going to let go up to 75 valuable members, as one of our mandates is coming to an end,” announced the studio earlier this year. “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, and we are working to support them through this transition.”
Eidos Montreal has been haemorrhaging employees through these lay-offs on an almost yearly basis at this point. The company had let go of 97 employees back in January 2024 across its development, support services and administration teams.
“The global economic context, the challenges of our industry and the comprehensive restructuring announced by Embracer have finally impacted our studio,” said the studio in its announcement back then. “The difficult decision has been made to let go 97 people from development teams, administration, and support services.”
While it is currently unknown what projects Eidos Montreal has been working on, rumours from back in April have indicated that it had been “actively pitching” a new game in the Deus Ex franchise. These pitches, however, weren’t going anywhere due to the series being described as “too niche” by some companies. This report came a year after the studio’s Deus Ex project had been cancelled by parent company Embracer Group after having spent two years in development.
Since Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy, Eidos Montreal has been working as a support studio with developers under the Xbox Game Studios banner. The studio is noted as having helped in the development of the upcoming Fable title by Playground Games, as well as Obsidian Entertainment’s survival crafting game Grounded 2.
The last full release that Eidos Montreal worked on prior to Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy was all the way back in 2018 when it was still owned by Square Enix – Shadow of the Tomb Raider. In the past, the studio has also worked as a support studio for other games in the Tomb Raider reboot trilogy, along with making its own games like 2014’s Thief and 2016’s Deus Ex: Mankind Divided.
