Eidos Montreal has scrapped an ambitious open-world game it had been quietly building since early 2019, with the cancellation directly triggering the layoff of 124 employees announced this week. Long-time studio head David Anfossi is also stepping down after 13 years leading the studio.The canceled game, internally codenamed Project P11 (the 11th project in development at the studio), was an open-world third-person action-adventure title. Players controlled River, a teenager in a group called the Spiritbounds, who fought off evil spirits using magical staffs and rode mythical creatures. River’s companion was Redheart, a giant moose-like beast used to traverse the map. Insider Gaming, which broke the story, described footage as surprisingly close to completion — the game had reportedly passed key milestones and was deep in the debugging phase, with a release window tentatively penciled in for later this year.
A project that burned through four game engines and hundreds of millions
Despite being nearly finished, the project had a troubled road getting there. Sources told Insider Gaming the game cycled through four different game engines over its development, faced ongoing narrative conflicts, and burned through a budget that spiraled into the hundreds of millions. That runaway spending had already claimed one victim: a new Deus Ex game was quietly canceled in January 2024 as a direct result.
Eidos Montreal’s shrinking ambitions under Embracer Group
The studio’s parent company, Embracer Group, has been in financial freefall since a major restructuring in 2023–2024, and this cancellation fits an uncomfortable pattern. Jason Schreier confirmed on Reddit that the layoffs and cancellation happened simultaneously — on March 30 — though Eidos Montreal’s official statement made no mention of any specific project.The studio now appears to be pivoting away from original titles entirely, shifting toward a co-development role on projects like Obsidian’s Grounded 2 and Playground Games’ Fable reboot. For a studio that once built its identity around Deus Ex and Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy, that’s quite the step down.
