Square Enix Shake-up Their Studios to React to “Rapidly Changing Market”

Square Enix has announced today that they are shaking up many of their studios to reflect what they call a “rapidly changing market” in the West.

Currently Head at Crystal Dynamics, Darrell Gallagher will also now take on the role of Head of Studios in North America and Europe. Gallagher will remain in his position at the Tomb Raider developer, but he will now also work with other Square Enix studios, going forward.

Another change sees David Anfossi – who was executive producer on Deus Ex: Human Revolution – will now head up Eidos Montreal. Anfossi will oversee the development of the Thief reboot coming in 2014, as well as two unannounced projects that the Canadian studio is working on.

Assistant director at Square Enix Montreal Patrick Naud, will now be placed in a leadership role at the studio whilst they focus development on smartphones and tablets. Initially, they will be working on Hitman games and look at other series’ in the future.

At Hitman developer IO Interactive, Hannes Seifert is the new studio head. The team is also currently in pre-production of a brand new Hitman title.

The publisher hasn’t been meeting sales targets as of late, so a shake-up is natural. Eidos Montreal is working on two games that no one knows about, IO Interactive are developing a brand new Agent 47 title – with readjusted forecasts, Square Enix could get out of this supposed slump.