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An anonymous developer fired by Embracer told us why an adaptation of John Carpenter's classic movie won't see the light of day anytime soon.
In case you missed the news, yesterday, we reported on a rumored video game adaptation of John Carpenter's classic 1981 action movie, Escape from New York, which, according to a Reddit post, was supposedly in the works at Embracer Group's Slipgate Ironworks.
Following the publication, I managed to come in contact with Slipgate's former employee, who revealed that the game had indeed been in development at some point, but, unfortunately, has since been canceled due to Embracer's extensive staff reductions as part of their restructuring campaign.
According to the developer, who, for obvious reasons, preferred to stay anonymous, they were amongst the unfortunate individuals who got fired during the company's December round of layoffs, back when the game in question was allegedly still in development.
By early January, when Embracer laid off even more developers across its teams, the game had reportedly been canceled, and the remaining employees were reassigned to work on Tempest Rising, Slipgate Ironworks' upcoming RTS. Following the project's termination, the devs were given permission to showcase their work related to the game on ArtStation under the title of an "Unannounced AAA Project."
The developer added that even before the cancelation, there were significant issues regarding the development process, although the exact nature of these issues wasn't disclosed. They seem, however, to stem from financial troubles at Embracer and Slipgate, as the anonymous developer alleged that by late February, the studio still hadn't paid January invoices for contractors, presumably indicating monetary constraints within the company.
"Unless Tempest Rising can recover all of the company losses, I honestly foresee Embracer either selling or shutting down both 3D Realms and Slipgate Ironworks," commented the developer. "Both companies are tied together with the same CEO and workforce.
As is always the case with anonymous reports, the decision to trust the information or not falls to everyone's individual judgment. Nonetheless, when Embracer initially kicked off its restructuring campaign, it was mentioned that, in addition to firing developers, the company would also terminate several undisclosed projects. With that in mind, it seems highly likely that an adaptation of Escape from New York was indeed in progress and has, unfortunately, simply fallen victim to the 2023-24 wave of layoffs.
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