The developers of Hitman Go, Lara Croft Go and Deus Ex Go are shutting down. Onoma, previously known as Square Enix Montreal, were acquired by Embracer in August alongside Square Enix’s other western development studios. Some staff will be transferred to another acquired studio, Eidos Montreal, sources told Bloomberg (registration required).
Embracer’s purchase of Square Enix’s studios began back in May and included Crystal Dynamics, Eidos Montreal, and Square Enix Montreal.
At the time the purchase was completed, Embracer said that Square Enix Montreal would be rebranded, and the studio was renamed Onoma just three weeks ago. You can still read about the (probably expensive) five-month, five-phase rebrand over at the Onoma site.
The GO games applied the skins of other series on top of a surprisingly effective and more-ish tile-based puzzle game, in which you’d direct Lara Croft or Ian Hitman and so on around an isometric world, avoiding traps and dispatching enemies along the way. We called Lara Croft Go a basically perfect game in 2016. The studio’s latest, Hitman Sniper: The Shadows, released on mobile earlier this year.
Embracer have been on a spending spree for years now, acquiring not only the aforementioned studios but also Gearbox, Perfect World, 3D Realms, Dark Horse Comics, Aspyr, 4A Games, Flying Wild Hog, Snapshot Games, Silent Games, Coffee Stain North, IUGO Mobile, Purple Lamp Studios, Mad Head Games, 34BigThings, Nimble Giant Entertainment, Zen Studios, and A Thinking Ape Entertainment. Some of those studios were acquired via Embracer’s subsidiaries, which includes Saber Interactive, THQ Nordic and Plaion (recently rebranded from Koch Media). Isn’t games industry consolidation fun?