Deus Ex: Game of the Year Edition News

Following the cancellation of a few recent projects, including a Deus Ex game that was in development at Eidos Montreal, Adam Jensen’s voice actor - Elias Toufexis - has bid what looks to be a potential farewell to the character. The good news is that Cyberpunk 2077 fans have already started submitting their calls for him to take on a similar role in Project Orion.

Yup, there’s no such thing as letting a poor guy grieve about the fact he might not get to play a character he likes anymore, work on Cyberpunk’s sequel has kicked off, and folks on Reddit think it needs another gruff cyber-mercenary. To be fair, who are we to argue?

Toufexis, who’s long provided the gravelly tones of Adam Jensen, posted on the Deus Ex subreddit the other day to thank the game’s community for supporting him and the character over the years. “As you guys all know, Jensen is one of the characters I've played who is near and dear to my heart,” the actor wrote in the post, “It seems I will always be associated with him and that's just fine with me.”

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In what’s already proving to be a pretty depressing year for the games industry, Embracer Group has decided to push itself back into the baddie limelight by cancelling a Deus Ex game and laying off close to 100 people.

Yes, last week it was Microsoft electing to fire an entire town’s worth of people into the sun following its acquisition of Activision Blizzard, this week it’s Embracer deciding to cut staff at Eidos Montreal and simultaneously do away with a title it’d spent two years working on. Even if it’d seemingly have been Adam Jensen-less, odds are the Deus Ex title in question would’ve been something at least a little bit fun, too.

Embracer’s move to cancel the game was first reported by Bloomberg, which suggested that it was an unannounced title that was due to enter production later this year, something which obviously won’t be happening now. No other details regarding what the game would’ve been about or involved seem to have been made public as of yet, though voice actor Elias Toufexis has revealed that he hadn’t been brought in to work on it during the time it’d been in development.

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The latest Embracer studio to suffer under the megacorp’s ongoing restructuring efforts are Eidos Montreal, with a new Deus Ex title two years into development reportedly cancelled and dozens of staff confirmed to be laid off.

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You know those JRPGs like Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest that Square Enix is pretty well-known for making, especially since it sold off a whole bunch of its other IPs and the studios that work on them? Well, the publisher doesn’t want to have to rely on them as much going forwards.

It’s an idea that makes plenty of sense in a vacuum, but seems a little bit hilarious given the whole ditching of the likes of Tomb Raider and Deus Ex that Square executed in May 2022, when it sold Crystal Dynamics, Eidos Montreal, and Square Enix Montreal to Embracer Group. But, hey, there are other games out there that the publisher could use to help expand its repertoire.

This desire to become less dependent on the existing big series Square Enix has at its disposal was outlined by company president Takashi Kiryu in the Q and A section of a November 2023 financial briefing that was only published recently (thanks, GamesRadar). In it, Kiryu (not that one) cites two areas in which he believes Square “to be lacking”, with the first of these being “the limited diversity of our title portfolio”.

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Earlier this month, Embracer Group announced their intent to buy Crystal Dynamics, Eidos Montreal and Square Enix Montreal from Square Enix in a $300 million (around £240m) deal. The acquisition includes the original IP associated with those studios, including Deus Ex, Thief, Legacy Of Kain and Tomb Raider.

In their quarterly earnings report, Embracer now say they see "great potential" in leveraging the heck out of that IP with sequels, remakes and more.

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