In an interview with Gamasutra, Stéphane D’Astous revealed plans for Eidos Interactive to open a new developmental studio in Montreal, Québec. D’Astous, who’ll serve as general manager for Eidos Montreal, also revealed that the new studio will begin development on Deus Ex 3 – remember the rumor folks?
According to D’Astous, Eidos Montreal currently employs two teams: a Q/A team that will test all of the studio’s games and an in-house development team that has begun preliminary work on Deus Ex 3. In regards to Deus Ex 3, D’Astous praised the series’ history and is excited to be working the title.
"This game was very highly rated at its release in 2000, and we have this great huge mandate to do the third one, and everybody is very excited."
But as for a possible release date, D’Astous doesn’t want to rush it. They’re treating Deus Ex 3 pretty seriously, so it probably won’t come out for another two years.
"That’s music to a lot of ears over here. Some developers are really trying to push titles out the door within 12-15 months; we’re working on plans for our first few titles that will only be released after 24 months."
Lastly, D’Astous said that Eidos is currently running a business plan to boost Eidos Montreal’s employee count from 80 to over 350 people during the next three years. While Eidos is looking to hire in the coming future, D’Astous mentioned that they want to keep the team sizes down, in order to avoid too many people working on a game.
"We’re pretty much on track on our business plan if not ahead. Right now, we’re almost 80 people. Our business plan is over three years – we have three phases of expansion. The ultimate goal is, by 2009 we should be 350 people.
We will want to limit our dev teams to a human-sized team of 80 people at the very highest of the peak in the production cycle. We don’t want to become a huge studio where there’s over 100 people on a title."
A teaser trailer can be found on Eidos Montreal’s website.
Other information about Deus Ex 3, such as associated platforms, weren’t released so stay tuned to GamerNode for future developments.
