Quantic Dream, the NetEase-owned developer behind Heavy Rain, Detroit and the upcoming Star Wars Eclipse has broken its silence following the layoffs and shutdowns seen across numerous other NetEase-supported studios.
In a statement posted on LinkedIn, Quantic Dream CEO Guillaume de Fondaumière said the studio’s teams had not been impacted by NetEase’s dramatic cuts, and were “continuing to develop our projects at full pace”.
Indeed, things are apparently rosy for the company, with de Fondaumière noting the developer saw its highest revenues in its 28-year history during 2024, driven by “exceptional performance” of its back catalogue of games – and 2018’s Detroit: Become Human in particular. The company shifted a further 2m copies of Detroit across PC and PlayStation last year, for a new all-time total of 11m.
“We were deeply saddened to learn about the recent layoffs and studio closures affecting some of the NetEase group’s divisions,” de Fondaumière wrote. “Our thoughts are with everyone impacted, and we sincerely hope that they quickly find new opportunities.
“[Company founder] David Cage and I would like to express our gratitude to the fans and friends who have reached out to us in recent days regarding Quantic Dream,” he continued. “We want to reassure everyone that our studios in Paris and Montreal remain unaffected.”
Today’s statement by de Fondaumière does not mention the company’s upcoming Star Wars Eclipse by name, though the CEO did state that Quantic Dream was “continuing to develop our projects at full pace” with work “progressing as planned”.
“We are fully committed to delivering and launching these innovative, high-quality titles in the future,” de Fondaumière concluded, without providing any more detail on when more news on Star Wars Eclipse – or anything else the company is working on – might come.
Announced to fanfare in 2021, Star Wars Eclipse currently lacks any kind of release window more than four years later. Updates have since been scarce. In October 2023, the studio decribed Star Wars Eclipse as “simmering”.
A similarly-worded statement in response to NetEase’s cuts was also posted on social media by Paul Ehreth, boss of the newly-founded NetEase-backed studio Anchor Point Studios.
“Anchor Point Studios has not been affected by any studio closures, and we are still full steam ahead building our game,” wrote Ehreth, who previously served as lead designer on Remedy’s Control.
“So far, NetEase has been a great partner for us, giving us creative control and development support, and we look forward to the prospect of shipping an exceptional game together in the future.”
But while Quantic Dream, Anchor Point Studios and The Witcher 3 director’s Rebel Wolves have seemingly been given the green light by NetEase to now declare themselves safe, a swathe of other studios funded by the Chinese giant remain unaccounted for.
A recent Game File report, which feels like it prompted today’s statements, listed an array of other NetEase companies and stated that the publisher was “actively shopping around more of its non-Chinese studios” in the hope they’d be sold.
These included GPTRACK50, Jackalyptic Games, Nagoshi, Pincool, Skybox Labs, Studio Flare, T-Minus Zero Entertainment, and more.
In response to that report, NetEase stated that “all studios and projects are in constant review and evaluation, and NetEase will determine changes needed to be made throughout that process”.
NetEase began its cuts late last year, with layoffs and studio closures at Mass Effect veteran Mac Walters’ new studio Worlds Untold, Halo Infinite design boss Jerry Hook’s team at Jar of Sparks, and more recently at Liquid Sword, the company founded by the creator of Just Cause.
Last week, NetEase stunned fans of hit brawler Marvel Rivals by culling US-based staff working on the successful project in order to “optimise development efficiency”.
