One of the greater hopes that Eidos-Montréal fans have had following the news of the studio’s pending acquisition by Embracer Group is a new Deus Ex game.
That may actually have a chance of happening, according to games journalist Jeff Grubb, who returned in a new episode of Game Mess Mornings today alongside Waypoint’s Patrick Klepek and claimed that he has heard “rumblings” of Eidos-Montréal wanting to develop a new Deus Ex game.
While things are still “early,” Grubb suggested that one of the key reasons driving the Canadian studio’s interest in a Deus Ex revival relates to CD PROJEKT RED’s own cyberpunk RPG, which has arguably failed to live up to expectations. Eidos-Montréal apparently wants to show the world how the genre should be handled.
“We don’t know, really, what to expect from an Embracer-owned, Crystal Dynamics, Eidos Montreal,” Grubb said. “It’s early, the rumblings I’ve heard […] they want to get right back into [Deus Ex]. They want to do what Cyberpunk 2077 couldn’t; that’s the word going around. I mean, we’ll see if that happens. It’s so early, who knows what that will turn into, but that was probably not even […] there was no possibility of that conversation to even begin under Square Enix, right?”
Embracer Group confirmed in May that it had entered into an agreement with Square Enix to acquire its western studios, Crystal Dynamics, Eidos-Montréal, and Square Enix Montréal.
The Swedish holding company noted that the deal included “a catalogue of IPs including Tomb Raider, Deus Ex, Thief, Legacy of Kain and more than 50 back-catalogue games” from Square Enix, although there has been no official word yet as to whether any of these franchises will be getting new installments anytime soon aside from Tomb Raider. (Crystal Dynamics has already confirmed that it’s developing a new adventure with Lara Croft using Unreal Engine 5.)
The most recent mainline Deus Ex game is Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, a 2016 sequel to Deus Ex: Human Revolution that transported Adam Jensen from Detroit to Prague in a fight against augmented terrorists. Future Deus Ex games were put on hold by Square Enix after the studio deemed Deus Ex: Mankind Divided a flop following lower-than-expected sales.
Source: Game Mess Mornings Show