Microsoft have halted development on Just Cause devs’ 70s co-op smuggler Contraband
Microsoft have brought development work on Contraband, the co-op smuggling game that Just Cause developers Avalanche Studios announced back in 2021, to a standstill. That’s the official line, while a report from Bloomberg claims the game’s been cancelled outright.
Nothing had been been seen or heard of Contraband since its reveal to the world at E3 four years ago, and this sudden status update comes just weeks after Microsoft cancelled Perfect Dark, Everwild, and an unannounced MMO from ZeniMax as part of mass layoffs that saw around 9,000 staff lose their livelihoods.
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“Over the past several years, Avalanche Studios Group and Xbox Game Studios Publishing have collaborated on Contraband,” reads a statement Avalanche put out last night. “Active development has now stopped while we evaluate the project’s future. We’re thankful for the excitement we’ve seen from the community since we announced and will give an update on what’s next as soon as we can.”
That statement’s arrival followed reports from both Bloomberg and Game File about Contraband’s fate. The former saw Jason Schreier claim that this halt to development isn’t just a pause, but a full-blown cancellation decided on by Microsoft. Meanwhile, the latter said that the game has been put “on hold”, linking the news to Microsoft’s July layoffs – which saw cuts in Xbox’s publishing division that works with outside development studios.
We’d already seen the consequences of those cuts and the call to stop funding several unnanounced games, with Romero Games having funding for their upcoming FPS pulled, leaving them searching for a new publisher to get the project over the line. Some third-party games, including Kojima Productions’ OD, are reportedly unaffected.
Contraband’s premise sounds very cool – you and your mates smuggling goods across borders in “the fictional Southeast Asian world of 1970s Bayan”. That E3 trailer, which has been set to private on Xbox’s English YouTube channel (but is still up on the Mexican one), had some Steely Dan in the background.
“Yeah, you go back, Jack, do it again,” go the lyrics. “Wheel turnin’ ’round and ’round. You go back, Jack, do it again.”
We’ll have to see where the wheel for Avalanche, over 500 staff at whom unionised last year, turns next. That’s assuming this truly is is the last stop for Contraband’s convoy.
