Where are they making the franchise reboot to end all franchise reboots? Montreal, Canada. That’s where I was last week. Nice town. Good food, pretty girls, and this insane underground network of shopping malls that has to be seen to be believed. I was there to check out Deus Ex: Human Revolution, and while I was there I thought I’d have a peek around the office.
This office, which features “membre du groupe Square Enix” on the main entryway wall, has about 330 employees working in it over two floors. It’s a good looking office. They’re soon expanding to another floor and several more employees to work on some new stuff they wouldn’t talk about. Deus Ex: Human Revolution will be the first game shipped from this office.
Before you ask, they PR people went around the entire multifloor office, carefully working to remove anything that we could get any ideas about. The word is that Eidos Montreal is working on a few new things. They did a great job of hiding them!
Here you can see where they work, with the prowling shots cut off right before the juicy stuff. See the shot above? Go down that hall and turn to the right and they have what amounts to most of the final game laid out on the walls over the computers there in imagery and notes. I couldn’t get a shot. Sorry.
One of the coolest things in the office I couldn’t photograph was a room where the public is invited to play test their games. All around this room, which has one-way mirrors inside, the staff watch on as the public plays. They speak with users and get feedback to improve their games. One of the other coolest things in this office is the fully stocked beer refrigerator in the break room. They have what they call “beer Fridays” there. I’m kind of mad that they invited me out on a Thursday.
