Eidos Montreal and Crystal Dynamics have huge plans for the upcoming five years.
As reported by Video Games Chronicle, Embracer CEO Lars Wingefors revealed that Crystal Dynamics and Eidos Montreal have five AAA games in total planned to release until March 2028.
Lars is defining AAA games to have over 100 full time developers when they are at the peak of development. They are also expected to sell at least two million units, and will subsequently have high marketing budgets. If there are external companies paying for development, Embracer will still get a huge financial return from them.
Three out of these five games seem to be accounted for.
A new Tomb Raider game, connected to the Survivor storyline started in 2013’s Tomb Raider, is in development by Crystal Dynamics. Surprisingly, Amazon Games has emerged as the publisher for this game. In fact, they purchased the rights to Tomb Raider.
Perfect Dark is not an IP that Embracer Group owns. However, its actual owner, Rare parent company Microsoft, have hired Crystal Dynamics alongside The Initiative to remake the game for their platforms. This project has been notoriously quiet about updates, but if it is part of Lars’ report, that means they anticipate it releasing at least until 2028.
Finally, a new Deus Ex game has reportedly been put in production under Eidos Montreal. We don’t have much more information on this. Rumors had been going around that the studio was eager to work on a new game in the franchise as early as last August, and Jason Schreier has also confirmed this rumor.
If Jason Schreier is reliable on this rumor, he has other possible leaks on what else is in the works. As he shared last November,
“They’re now working on:
1) A new IP (recently rescoped)
2) A new Deus Ex (very very early)
3) co-dev partnerships with Xbox including Fable.”
The new IP that Eidos Montreal is working on is the most promising project among these rumors. While the studio has had a mixed record with their most recent games, a new IP from the studio will see hot demand, as they have stayed loyal to making only sequels and reboots of their legacy properties for some time now.
That new IP could be in development for the purpose of making it a live service game. While it could be fun to see Deus Ex and Tomb Raider get the battle royale treatment, making a new property from scratch means they can design the story around the game and not vice versa.
With these well laid plans, Eidos Montreal and Crystal Dynamics could be seeing a bright future.
