Embracer has shut down Onoma, a studio previously known as Square Enix Montreal, according to information obtained by Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier. This may affect several games that the studio was working on and has reportedly already canceled an unannounced game in development.
This move comes just a few months after Embracer acquired the studio. In the acquisition, Embracer’s deal bought it Crystal Dynamics, Eidos-Montreal, and Square Enix Montreal, now known as Onoma.
Embracer informed employees that some of the staff would be moving to Eidos Montreal, another studio under the parent company. Eidos is currently working with Xbox on Fable 4 and some other games, and the studio has recently made some changes to what it’s working on as well. A rumored Stranger Things-themed game is now canceled and the studio is working on some new IP and a new Deus Ex.
Onoma was responsible for many of the Go series games, such as Hitman Go, Lara Croft Go, and Deus Ex Go.
Embracer has been on quite the spending spree, acquiring a plethora of smaller studios in a short amount of time. Before the most recent acquisition, Embracer Group also bought eight studios, including Slipgate Ironworks, Easy Trigger, and CrazyLabs.
Fans of games like Fable 4 are hoping that the shakeup impacts the development of these games positively and that the timetable for those games is not impacted due to new developers joining Eidos. Fable 4 currently has no release date and is likely still quite a few years off, so fans likely won’t hear about any back-end delays but are still holding out hope that there will be a release date soon.
