Just a month after Microsoft’s massive layoffs at Xbox and several game cancellations, such as the Perfect Dark reboot, they seem to be at it again with the current cancellation of Contraband, the Avalanche Studios-developed game. This news comes from a known industry insider, Jason Schreie,r who posted on his social media, “Xbox is cancelling Contraband, announced in 2021 from Avalanche Studios (Just Cause), after four years of radio silence.”
Fans were worried the game was also cancelled last month when the game’s trailer was pulled from YouTube, after no official word after the fallout, most thought the game was safely, and it was possibly the licensed song in the trailer that caused its removal. However, we now learn the truth.
After last month’s shocking layoffs and game cancellations, most thought it would be a long time before we hear about more negative news from Xbox but it seems they are continuing to evaluate games they are publishing or developing directly. With this latest news, many fear even more cancellations are on the way unless this was slightly delayed for unknown reasons and part of last month’s evaluations.
Luckily, like John Romero’s game, which was being published by Xbox and also had their publishing deal cancelled, they are able to look for other options to hopefully save the game. Avalanche Studios responded directly to the rumours with the following statement:
Hopefully, Avalanche Studios is able to find a new publishing partner for Contraband and allow them to continue development and avoid any layoffs at their studio if the game has to be cancelled. Until then, we can only wait to hear back from Avalanche about the game’s inevitable fate.
The game’s trailer can still be found on YouTube, archived by other channels such as here:
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