Tencent has shuttered another western studio: TiMi Montréal.
TiMi – which was headed up by former Assassin’s Creed creative director Ashraf Ismail after he was let go from Ubisoft amid a flurry of high-profile departures in 2020 – seemingly closed on Friday, 20th February.
As reported by Game File – which says sources had warned that a “shutdown was imminent” – a senior gameplay programmer wrote on LinkedIn that though the team “had been aware this was coming for some time, it doesn’t make the reality any easier”.
A senior designer added: “This team was exceptional not just in talent, but also in camaraderie. It’s one of those experiences that sticks with you for a very long time, and I feel privileged to have been part of it”.
The five-year-old studio had been committed to creating “AAA open-world multi-platform games” but was chiefly working on titles it had inherited from Jade Studio, TiMi’s name before 2020, and mobile spin-offs, including Pokémon Unite and Call of Duty: Mobile (which is different from the mobile Warzone game that’s shutting down in April).
According to its LinkedIn profile, TiMi Group in its entirety employs between 5000 and 10,000 people.
An earlier version of this story inadverently classed TiMi as a NetEase studio, not Tencent. We’ve now updated the story – apologies for any confusion.