Quantic Dream, responsible for just so many over-hyped, anticlimactic, faintly racist games, is back with some big news! Not only is it still, allegedly, developing a Star Wars game, but the studio known for single-player story-focused games is now also working on a competitive multiplayer game called Spellcasters.
David Cage’s Quantic Dream is world-renowned for its cinematic story-driven games that promise extraordinary levels of interaction and choice and sometimes instead deliver badly written nonsense about ninjas or something. So who better than the developers of Indigo Prophesy and Detroit: Become Human to pick up the endlessly dropped baton of the next great Overwatch-like? That’s the plan according to Cage who, in a blog post on the company’s site, explained the much-expanded studio is working on a “competitive multiplayer experience, born from the same spirit of curiosity and creativity that has always defined us.”
“This new title may surprise our fans as it is very different from what we have done so far,” Cage continues. “But taking risks, challenging ourselves, exploring new ways of playing and telling stories, and attempting what seems impossible, has always been part of our DNA.”
It’s honestly hard to see any of this innovative originality in the trailer that dropped as I was writing this. Spellcasters might end up being completely brilliant for all I know, but the 3×3 hero shooter looks astonishingly generic to my eyes, indistinguishable from a dozen other wannabes.
Quantic Dream has had quite the odd last few years, perhaps driving its desire for radical change. The studio was accused by multiple former and current staff of being a “toxic workplace” that featured homophobia, racism and punishing crunch; claims which were furiously refuted by the two bosses, Cage and Guillaume de Fondaumière. So angered were the pair that in 2018 they sued the French media outlets that published the claims, which led to astonishing scenes in a 2021 court case where de Fondaumière asked if they were allowed to lie because they weren’t under oath, while Cage was reported to have cried, stamped, screamed and eventually stormed out of the court room. Then, for one final surreal twist, Quantic Dream won part of this case but without ever disproving the allegations. (It’s even weirder, because despite Le Monde and Mediapart collaborating on its reporting about the studio, QD somehow won against one and lost against the other. Meanwhile, the third outlet involved, Canard PC, wasn’t sued at all.) However, given it lost another part, it means much of the reporting was upheld by the courts.
But what about Star Wars: Eclipse?
So anyway, it’s that lot making the next hopeful to enter the live-service multiplayer arena. And that’s also, we are led to believe, still making Star Wars: Eclipse. The game was announced in 2021 (following widespread rumors), before going extremely quiet for a couple of years. Then in 2023 we learned it would not feature any “game overs” and that any character could die. But then, another two years of silence. So is it dead? Apparently not. Cage makes a very brief reference to the game in his post, stating, “Of course, development of Star Wars: Eclipse continues, and we are eager to share more with you in the future.”
But literally nothing else. It doesn’t bode well, honestly, given it’s been four years and you have to think Disney would like something to show off. It has in fact been over seven years since the developer released a game, with its focus seemingly shifted toward publishing in the interim. It published last year’s Dustborn alongside Under the Waves, in addition to helping out with motion capture for Elden Ring.
Now the company is splitting its focus, clearly hoping to do what Sony and so many others couldn’t, and release a hit hero shooter.
