According to a reliable source, another canceled project has emerged within the studio, which is not surprising.

Eidos Montreal may be in even bigger trouble after the release of Grounded 2 and the Fable reboot, as further layoffs are reportedly imminent. There have already been two rounds of layoffs this year alone. Seventy-five employees were laid off in March, and even more were laid off last week. While the laid-off employees are tasked with finding new jobs, their résumés have surfaced, revealing that they were working on a sci-fi stealth game and a turn-based point-and-click adventure game. The former could have been another Deus Ex.

Grounded 2 has already been released on Early Access. This gives Eidos Montréal more time to continue researching and achieving results. However, according to a reliable insider, the gaming industry missed out on something potentially special from Tolkien’s Middle-earth: a Lord of the Rings card game with Telltale-style story elements sounds promising, but practice differs from theory. According to Henderson, the project was canceled in the early stages of development and would likely have been linked to the Embracer Group, which isn’t great news these days.

“The cancellations were related to that particular project. I believe it was 2023, just before — or maybe just after — they announced OD at The Game Awards. Around that time, Eidos Montréal was working on OD. They had about 20 developers working on it, but it was canceled. I guess it’s kind of weird, but you don’t really hear about this much. Kojima Productions wanted those developers to move to Japan,” said Henderson.

Of course, the Lord of the Rings franchise already has a physical card game and a digital version, but Asmodee Digital’s venture hardly captures Telltale’s narrative grandeur. Unfortunately, we will never see this canceled project. This is part of a broader, much more devastating overarching issue: the gaming industry is constantly hit by layoffs, with no end in sight.

Source: TheGamer