During today’s Embracer Group investors call, Eidos Montréal studio head David Anfossi appeared to present the development team’s history to the new owners, starting with the foundation back in 2007 which led to the first release in 2011, the critically acclaimed Deus Ex: Human Revolution.
Eidos Montréal then released the Thief reboot in 2014 before going on to make Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, which was slightly less successful than its predecessor when it launched in 2016.
The studio subsequently took over the development lead on Shadow of the Tomb Raider, the final installment in the reboot trilogy, since Crystal Dynamics was busy working on Marvel’s Avengers.
Shadow of the Tomb Raider was released in September 2018, garnering an 8.6/10 score here on Wccftech.
Shadow of the Tomb Raider succeeds in giving Lara the character growth she needed and also brings the reboot trilogy to a satisfying closure. It does so mostly by refining the strong gameplay foundation set with the previous installments while delivering a great action/adventure experience in terms of storytelling and audiovisual spectacle.
After that, Eidos Montréal was put to work on Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy as part of the Square Enix deal with Marvel. The licensed game launched last October and was another successful release, getting an 8/10 score from us.
Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy is a highly enjoyable action/adventure romp that never strays from the beaten path. You won’t find any major experiments or innovations here, but you will experience a great adaptation of the beloved dysfunctional team of galactic superheroes. The story and characters are well written, the combat is fun (if perhaps a bit too easy), and the audio is excellent.
The most interesting tidbit in Anfossi’s talk was the reveal that Eidos Montréal has already adopted Unreal Engine 5 to develop its upcoming projects, just like sister studio Crystal Dynamics for the future Tomb Raider game. The game developer, which now counts 442 employees in Montréal, 34 in Sherbrooke, and 5 in Shanghai, had previously used the in-house Dawn Engine (itself based on IO Interactive’s Glacier 2) for Deus Ex: Mankind Divided and Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy, and the Foundation Engine for Shadow of the Tomb Raider. Eidos Montréal did use the Unreal Engine 3 for the Thief reboot, though.
Given that Guardians of the Galaxy is so recent, we might have to wait a while before we get to see the studio’s next project. Until then, stay tuned to get all the latest news and rumors.
