Today Square Enix has revealed that it's planning on expanding studio Eidos-Montreal, generating 100 jobs. The Japanese publisher has also revealed their intention of building a new studio in the city - Square Enix Montreal - creating another 150 positions.
Eidos-Montreal is currently working on a new Thief game as well as the highly anticipated sequel to Deus Ex. Stephane D'Astous, the general manager of Eidos-Montreal, told Gamasutra "We're expanding Eidos Montreal because we feel it's the right time to increase our output...... with the new expansion, we're aiming to host three triple-A games within the studio". Ambitious plans indeed.
An unannounced third title, thought to be a new Hitman game, is reportedly being lined up as one of Square Enix Montreal's first projects. With development of games being split between their new Montreal base and original Danish developer IO, could this be a sign of Square Enix's determination to shorten development cycles and improve productivity (something that we talked about last week)?
Lee Singleton, the man chosen to head up the new studio, elaborated "We will increase the frequency of game releases, but we have no plans to migrate the franchise to Montreal in its entirety". So not only more games, but games more frequently: doubly good news for fans of the barcoded assassin.
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