Eidos Montreal suffers layoffs after shelving the nearly finished three hundred million dollar Wildlands Project P11 following seven years of development and financial strain
Eidos Montreal has experienced one more round of job cuts because the studio decided to stop work on its Wildlands project which had progressed through most of its development stages. The studio dedicated substantial resources to the project which had been in production since 2019. Insider Gaming reports that the project carried the internal name P11 because it represented the developer's eleventh major production. The studio entered a transitional phase because the project needed to be terminated after investing more than three hundred million dollars into it.
The development process of Wildlands encountered internal challenges together with technical difficulties which lasted for multiple years. The development team utilized four different game engines during their work which resulted in increasing costs for the project. The technical changes led to ongoing conflicts between the development team which wanted to change the game's storytelling direction. The entire studio suffered from financial strain because the P11 project budget expanded beyond control which forced them to stop developing several upcoming games including the Deus Ex series which had been planned for production in early 2024.
The most surprising element of the cancellation occurs because of its unexpected timing. Sources who have knowledge about the project maintain that Wildlands reached its finishing point. The game had successfully met essential production requirements and had entered the stage for final debugging. The project had reached its most accessible point to players as it moved forward from its original planned release date of late 2026. Embracer Group decided to terminate the project because they believed additional funding would not generate any profitable outcomes.
Wildlands provided players with an extensive open world experience which allowed them to play through third person action adventure gameplay. Players became River who belonged to a mystical organization called Spiritbounds. The group used magical staffs to protect themselves from supernatural forces which roamed the world. The gameplay featured a special connection between characters and the natural world which enabled players to traverse the game space with the help of legendary creatures.
In the game players traveled by using Redheart who was a giant moose like companion. The creature provided River with fast map travel abilities which created a combination of expansive game world space and unlimited exploration opportunities. Some industry observers noted a strong visual resemblance between this title and a previously shelved survival project called WiLD, though the two were confirmed to be entirely separate productions. The core concepts of Wildlands suffered from excessive logistical and monetary requirements which made them impossible to realize.
The cancellation marks a difficult chapter for the team at Eidos Montreal as they navigate the aftermath of the layoffs. The studio maintains its skilled employee base yet the disappearance of its almost finished major project demonstrates the unpredictable character of contemporary video game development. The industry now looks to see how the remaining staff will pivot toward new ventures after the departure of a project that occupied the studio for over seven years. The current state of P11 exists as an assembly of hidden video material together with a warning about the difficulties which arise when handling extensive development spending.
