Xbox has reportedly pulled the plug on a brand new game from the Just Cause team. Xbox has been in a strange state for the last few years. For starters, fans got pretty upset when Xbox started bringing some of their big games over to PlayStation. It felt like a sign that Xbox as a platform was dying and that the company was taking any approach possible to stay sustainable. On top of that, numerous studios have been shut down resulting in thousands of lay offs and many games being cancelled. Just a month ago, the Perfect Dark reboot, Everwild, and a new ZeniMax MMO were all scrapped with developer The Initiative being shut down.
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It was a move that caused a ton of controversy and has led to fans feeling like Xbox’s future is bleak. Despite Xbox confirming it is working on a new console, many wonder why they’d even bother investing into a console that can’t even deliver its games. Not only are games being cancelled, but others are taking forever to release. Fable has been in development for the better part of a decade and won’t release until next year at the earliest. That game was announced when the Xbox Series X was revealed and yet, it likely won’t release until a year or two before the next Xbox releases.
Unfortunately, things are only getting worse, though. It has been confirmed that active development has stopped on Contraband, a brand new heist game being made by Just Cause developer Avalanche Studios. Xbox Game Studios was going to publish this game, which was announced formally back in 2021. Some thought Contraband was quietly cancelled previously due to the fact it has been quiet for so long, but it has been alive this whole time. However, Xbox has pulled the plug on the project. Avalanche did give a bit of hope for the project in a statement, noting that they are “evaluating the project’s future” and will give some kind of announcement as soon as they can.
It’s possible Contraband may be scooped up by a different publisher, but that will likely depend on how good the game looks in its current state. If Contraband was cancelled because it wasn’t making enough progress or was in a rough place, then it’s hard to imagine another publisher wanting to continue to invest in it. However, all we can do is wait and see what happens. It’s unfortunate, though, as a big new heist game sounds really cool. However, Contraband has been MIA for nearly half a decade and it’s hard to say when it might even release, if it does get saved.
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