Deus Ex IP will be revived by Eidos Montreal with Embracer Group deal

Eidos Montreal has some plans for its post-Square Enix future. You probably asked for this.

The video game world exploded on Sunday night with the announcement that Square Enix had sold its North American studio presence to Embracer Group. There are many questions surrounding what this all means for gaming, but one thing has become clear during Sunday’s conference call: Embracer now has a lot of IPs and it’s planning to bring a big one back. Deus Ex is about to make a return.

“At this time, we are crazy people who have decided to revive the Deus Ex IP as our first game,” Eidos Montreal Studio Head David Anfossi said during the Embracer Group conference call. “A new team, a very complex production, a new tech, and a new studio, an easy challenge.”

Anfossi notes that, like the new Tomb Raider, the new Deus Ex will utilize new Unreal Engine 5 technology. As an introduction to the Embracer Group, Anfossi showed off a number of stats relating to the franchise. That includes the console game sales that have exceeded 12 million units, more than 2 million paid mobile downloads for Deux Ex: The Fall and Deus Ex: GO, and the 83 percent Metacritic average.

A Deus Ex announcement coming almost immediately after this acquisition news is a good indicator that Embracer feels almost the exact opposite of these North American studios as their former owners at Square Enix. Square famously lashed out at its North American studios, frequently singling them out as major sales losers, despite high critical and consumer acclaim. Deus Ex was among them and while Square Enix CEO Yosuke Matsuda insisted that the franchise wasn’t dead in a 2017 GamesIndustry.Biz interview, the lack of any new Deus Ex titles over almost a decade seemed to indicate otherwise.

There’s no word on when a new Deus Ex would be ready. However, the fact that it’s even on the radar at all should be cause for celebration. We’re monitoring the breaking news of this Embracer acuisition of Square Enix’s North American studios and looking to decipher what it all means. Keep it on Shacknews, because we’re just getting started with this story.

Ozzie has been playing video games since picking up his first NES controller at age 5. He has been into games ever since, only briefly stepping away during his college years. But he was pulled back in after spending years in QA circles for both THQ and Activision, mostly spending time helping to push forward the Guitar Hero series at its peak. Ozzie has become a big fan of platformers, puzzle games, shooters, and RPGs, just to name a few genres, but he’s also a huge sucker for anything with a good, compelling narrative behind it. Because what are video games if you can’t enjoy a good story with a fresh Cherry Coke?