Square Enix Montreal

Square Enix Montréal

Type	Subsidiary
Industry	Video game industry
Founded	October 6, 2011 (2011-10-06)
Headquarters	Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Key people	Patrick Naud (Head of Studio)
Products	Go series (2014–)
Number of employees	29 (2016)
Parent	Square Enix Europe
Website	square-enix-montreal.com

Square Enix Montréal is a studio under Square Enix based in Montreal, Canada. They are most known for creating the Go series, which is a series of turn-based puzzle games for smartphones and tablets based on former Eidos Interactive's properties including Hitman, Tomb Raider, and Deus Ex. The studio was founded in November 2011 to create a new Hitman series game for consoles and grow to employ several hundred people, but in late 2012 Square Enix decided to make one of their studios into a mobile-focused studio and changed Square Enix Montreal's mandate to make mobile games, beginning with the Hitman franchise. The company developed prototypes for two mobile Hitman games, which became the board game-inspired puzzle game Hitman Go (2014) and the shooter Hitman: Sniper (2015). The critical success of Hitman Go and its successor Lara Croft Go (2015), along with the commercial success of Sniper led the studio to create its latest title, Deus Ex Go (2016), with intention of combining the best elements of all their prior games.

History

Square Enix announced the opening of Square Enix Montreal in November 2011. The studio was led by Lee Singleton, who had led Square Enix London. Their first project was a new Hitman series game for consoles. Singleton said the studio was founded partially to work on such projects and create more high-quality games with Square Enix intellectual properties. The Hitman property, in particular, was to be co-developed with IO Interactive, which created the series and was at work on Hitman: Absolution (2012). Singleton planned to grow the studio beyond a single team to have multiple concurrent projects with up to 150 people, though the studio started with Singleton and three developers from IO Interactive. Singleton planned a slow design process, with no rush to production. The studio also received support from the Quebecois government.^[1]

As part of company-wide changes beginning in late 2012, led by a decision by Square Enix to move more into the mobile space and designate a studio to focus on that, in June 2013, Square Enix Montreal changed its focus to mobile game development with an emphasis on the Hitman franchise and tablet computers.^[2][3] The studio cancelled its work on the Hitman console game that year, and IO Interactive took up a similar project.^[4] After the internal announcement that Square Enix Montreal would be focusing on mobile games, many of the employees left for other large studios; the studio's assistant director, Patrick Naud, became its director.^[2][3] The employees who remained with the company broke into small teams for two weeks to create game design proposals, with the only restriction that the game would have to be a Hitman mobile title. The winning design for a board game-inspired stealth assassination game, by Antoine Routon and Daniel Lutz, became Hitman Go (2014), and led to a series of similar titles from multiple franchises. Also envisioned in the two week period was a mobile shooting game, originally intended to be a large premium Hitman game similar to the console entries in the series, which became a smaller sniping game Hitman: Sniper (2015).^[3]

As of August 2016, the studio employs around 40 people, who work in an office originally intended to hold several hundred working on larger games. The smaller size has led to employees, originally expecting to work on smaller sections of development, to instead work in several areas like in small independent studios, such as programmers working on game design. Some employees have stated that the shift in focus to unique mobile titles and lessening of fixed roles within the company have led the team to be more invested in their titles. While the Go series has received the majority of the critical attention and awards for the studio, Square Enix Montreal brand manager Geneviève St-Onge noted in August 2016 that the more traditional title Hitman: Sniper was the company's most commercially successful game. Its success has led the studio to develop its latest Go title, Deus Ex Go (2016), using developers from both the team that made Sniper and the team that made Hitman Go, and also to plan to release updates for the game like were made for Sniper.^[3]

Go series

Square Enix Montreal's Go series of turn-based puzzle games for smartphones and tablets released to high praise. Ryan McCaffrey of IGN wrote that the first two releases were the "smartest" mobile games of any console franchise.^[5] Sam Loveridge of Digital Spy summarized the series as immensely successful.^[6] The games use simple touchscreen gameplay mechanics to move the main characters from each screen around a minimalist board game-like puzzle. Hitman Go was released in 2014, Lara Croft Go (of the Tomb Raider series) in 2015, and Deus Ex Go of the Deus Ex series in 2016.^[6] The studio has focused on developing games with small teams, dedicated six to the development of Lara Croft Go and 12 to Deus Ex Go out of a total studio staff of 35.^[7] The studio partially attributes their success with the series to their unique position of being able to work with major franchises with the resources of a larger company, while retaining the smaller size and flexibility of an independent development studio.^[3]

Games developed

References

External links

• Official website

Square Enix Montreal
Games	Hitman Go (2014) Hitman: Sniper (2015) Lara Croft Go (2015) Deus Ex Go (2016)
Related	Square Enix Square Enix Europe