Eidos-Montréal dedicates itself to producing online games

[Cal Jeffrey]

Eidos-Montréal revised its vision statement today indicating the studio will shift its focus to online gaming. Studio head David Anfossi said a higher “emphasis” would be placed on producing “online experiences” in its titles going forward.

The new direction is going to require a bit of restructuring. Director of online technology Sébastien Bessette said they would have to make some changes to the Dawn engine (used in Mankind Divided) to give it online functionality.

“We’re also structuring the DAWN engine, our proprietary technology, to interface with modern online solutions, which gives us the ability to take advantage of existing technologies,” said Bessette.

The studio is looking to hire some new talent to help usher in the coming changes as well.

“Through the inherent interactivity of online play, our universes will have the chance to thrive both now and into the future. To achieve this, we are building the teams and tools capable of supporting our ambitions.”

Currently, Eidos-Montréal is looking to hire a lead programmer for multiplayer, a senior gameplay programmer and a senior online programmer. It also has several other programming positions as well as many positions in other departments on its jobs page.

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided introduced cosmetics for the first time in the history of the franchise. It has apparently done well enough that Eidos and its parent company, Square Enix, are looking to expand it further into the microtransactional model. We might even be seeing loot boxes in future games from the studio.

It is too early to tell how big the shift to online gaming will be. Hopefully, it does not go the way of Rockstar and GTA V. Single-player experiences are what made Eidos-Montréal famous. Properties with solo protagonists like Tomb Raider, Deus Ex and Thief are what fans of the studio want and expect.

We already know that another Deus Ex game is being discussed. It appears that we can expect it to have some type of online element — most likely a multiplayer mode and all that comes with it. As long as the developers can find a balance between the multiplayer experience and the single-player campaign, things should go well. If they get it wrong though, they risk losing a significant portion of their fan base.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/72368-eidos-montral-dedicates-itself-producing-online-games-now.html

 

[Burty117]

How to ruin your studio:

Step 1: Online Only
Step 2: Loot Boxes
Step 3: Day One DLC

 

[OortCloud]

Shudder

 

[pencea]

Feeling the need to incorporate online play/multiplayer in every game or loot box/micro-transactions.

No wonder this generation is a mess.

 

[trgz]

TBH they lost me with the last game but sadly this does seem like it's the future of gaming - no need for content in the way of a story, script, animation, mo-cap and voice acting, just let the kiddies fight amongst themselves and watch the money roll in

 

[Alex Voinica]

I still have enough old single-player games in my queue for the next 5 years , so go on , make online games, I honestly don't care and won't buy or play any of them.

 

[BSim500]

"Deus Ex: Mankind Divided introduced cosmetics for the first time in the history of the franchise."

It was also the first Deus Ex game that was an unfinished half-game (15hr main plot vs 24hrs of previous games). The "comeback" of Deus Ex: HR was indeed a one-off fluke. Even DX2: Invisible War (for all its consolization faults) involved more than just shooting low-level lackeys followed by a glorified "Part 3/3 is To Be Continued in Deus Ex 5 so that's really $120 we're charging for the same 25hr main story that was previously $60" 'end-game'. God I miss the days of Ion Storm + Eidos Interactive...

I still have enough old single-player games in my queue for the next 5 years , so go on , make online games, I honestly don't care and won't buy or play any of them.

I've reached the same stage. I used to worry about having a large backlog that I never seemed to go through, but given the appalling state of the industry today, I honestly would have ditched PC gaming altogether if "all future AAA games will just be mobile-phone-economics "piecemeal rental" games with more sparkly graphics" 'vision statement' garbage were the only option. Fortunately, Indie's + middle-weight devs (CDPR, Larian, etc) plus unplayed backlog + replays of Golden Oldies + modding communities of older games is resulting in more fun than the mindless "buy full price grind-fests then pay2degrind" futuristic 'premium' games...

 

[McMurdeR]

So, a studio famous for making decent single player story experiences has decided to stop doing what it's best at.

That will not end well