Tencent has shuttered its TiMi Studio in Montreal.
The developer was initially based in July 2021 to provide “AAA open-world multi-platform video games,” however in the end, it by no means even acquired to unveil a mission earlier than its closure. As Sport File reviews, Tencent quietly axed the studio, with the information solely being made official through former workers posting about their job losses on LinkedIn.
It’s unclear precisely why TiMi Montreal was shut down, particularly as Tencent didn’t reply to Sport File. The publication had additionally been investigating reviews in regards to the deliberate closure for weeks, however nonetheless hadn’t heard a concrete resolution.
What’s probably is that that is simply a part of Tencent’s bigger push over the previous 12 months to reduce its worldwide presence. Amid the COVID surge in demand for video games, Tencent was considered one of many corporations that ramped up funding, and a part of that included enlargement in areas like Montreal.
Nevertheless, it’s been taking steps to divest from most of those ventures in latest months, a transfer that’s resulted in closures of studios like TiMi Montreal and Worlds Untold, the latter of which was a Vancouver-based group led by Mass Impact veteran Mac Walters. Even nonetheless, the bigger TiMi Studio Group stays some of the profitable gaming corporations on the earth due to smash hit cell video games like Honor of Kings, Area of Valor, Name of Responsibility: Cellular and Delta Power.
In the meantime, the one factor we actually learn about TiMi Montreal is that it was being led by former Ubisoft Montreal developer Ashraf Ismail, who spearheaded Murderer’s Creed Origins and Valhalla. Ismail was fired from Ubisoft after allegations of abuse of energy amid a wider investigation into poisonous work tradition and sexual misconduct inside the firm.
Tencent isn’t the one Chinese language gaming firm to lately shutter a studio in Canada. In November, NetEase closed Toronto- and Montreal-based Dangerous Mind, which had been engaged on a mysterious “AAA action-adventure, open-world paranormal journey period set within the late ’80s.”
That mentioned, different Asian online game giants have lively studios in Canada. miHoYo, the Chinese language maker of well-liked video games like Genshin Influence and Honkai: Star Rail, has a Montreal workplace, as does Krafton, the South Korean conglomerate behind PUBG and the just-announced Venture Windless.
Picture credit score: Tencent
Supply: Sport File
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