The company formerly known as Square Enix Montreal, Studio Onoma, announced that it will be removing several games from the App Store and Google Play Store, including Deus Ex Go, Hitman Sniper: The Shadows, Arena Battle Champions, and Space Invaders: Hidden Heroes.
The games will be delisted from storefronts on December 1 and players will not be able to access the games after January 4, 2023. In-game purchases have also been suspended immediately, but players can still use in-game purchases they have already bought. If they go unused, however, they will not be refunded.
— Onoma (@StudioOnoma) November 22, 2022
Earlier this month, it was reported that Onoma’s parent company, Embracer Group, would be shutting down the studio and its staff would be transferred to Eidos Montreal. Onoma was formerly known as Square Enix Montreal and was purchased by Embracer Group back in May, along with the rest of Square Enix’s western studios.
However, it was only renamed to Onoma last month, which makes the studio closure seem all the more puzzling. Onoma is best known for its mobile games of popular franchises like Deus Ex and Tomb Raider, which spawned titles such as Deus Ex Go and Lara Croft Go, the former of which is shutting down in January.
Reportedly, Eidos Montreal is helping out Microsoft with the Fable franchise. This wouldn’t be a huge surprise considering that Crystal Dynamics, another studio that Embracer Group purchased from square Enix, is helping out The Initiative with Perfect Dark.
George Yang is a freelance writer for IGN. He’s been writing about the industry since 2019 and has worked with other publications such as Insider, Kotaku, NPR, and Variety.
When not writing about video games, George is playing video games. What a surprise! You can follow him on Twitter @Yinyangfooey