What the heck happened to Wildlands?
Big layoff wave at Eidos Montréal this week — over a hundred people were let go — and leaks quickly filled in the blanks: an unannounced project called Wildlands appears to have been canceled. That’s the story being pieced together from journalists like Jason Schreier and Tom Henderson, so treat this as leaked intel, not an official press release.
According to the reports, Wildlands was a third-person open-world action-adventure built around a teen named River and a crew called the Spiritbounds. Players would ride mystical beasts, swing magic staffs, and explore a living world accompanied by a very large moose buddy named Redheart. It sounds delightfully weird — think whimsical wilderness vibes with combat and exploration at the center.
Behind the scenes the project apparently had a rough ride: development allegedly started around early 2019, the team reportedly switched engines multiple times, narrative work hit snags, and the budget ballooned into the hundreds of millions. Those problems are being pointed at as the reason the project ate into other studio plans and budgets.
Why gamers should care (and why this stings)
The leak claims Wildlands was already in polish and eyeing a release later this year, which makes its cancellation particularly painful — for devs who poured years into it and for players who were starting to dream about a moose companion and spirit-wrangling mechanics.
Financially, sources say the cost overruns squeezed other projects at Eidos Montréal — including a new Deus Ex title that the studio confirmed was affected back in 2024. Reporters also note that Embracer (the publisher) reportedly decided the game wouldn’t recoup further investment, although the exact reasoning hasn’t been fully laid out publicly.
On the bright(ish) side: most of what we know is from leaks and insiders, so details could shift or be incomplete. There were even comparisons to Michel Ancel’s canceled WiLD because of the tribal-beasts-and-wilderness vibe, but that’s a loose artistic echo, not proof of anything.
There’s also chatter — unconfirmed again — that Eidos Montréal had other secret projects in the works at various times, including a rumored Alien title mentioned in late 2025. Whether any of that survives this reshuffle is unknown.
Bottom line: this feels like a twofold loss — a creative concept that may never see the light of day, and a human cost for devs hit by layoffs. For players it’s a reminder that even near-complete games can vanish if the numbers don’t add up to a publisher’s liking. Keep an eye on official statements, but expect more scraps of info from leakers as folks try to piece together what actually went wrong.
