Tencent AAA Studio TiMi Montreal Closed Down Before Seeing Its First Game

Tencent-backed TiMi Montreal ceased operations less than five years after its opening. Even more remarkable is the fact that the studio didn’t release a single game during that time. The closure, revealed through LinkedIn posts, has sparked a new debate about the future of big-budget game investments, particularly in North America.

TiMi Montreal Closes Without Publishing a Single Game

TiMi Montreal was founded in 2021 with the goal of developing “AAA open-world multi-platform games.” It was positioned as the third largest branch of TiMi Studio Group in North America, following its Los Angeles and Seattle offices. Having achieved success in the mobile space with massive titles like Honor of Kings and Arena of Valor, TiMi planned to focus on more ambitious projects on console and PC with this move.

The choice of Montreal was seen as a strategic move, given that it’s a city where a company with a strong open-world experience like Ubisoft is located. Indeed, experienced names like Ashraf Ismail, the creative director of Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, joined the team. However, despite this team restructuring, the studio never officially announced the project it was developing.

In recent years, it’s known that Chinese-based publishers have begun to scale back their investments in North America. Rising development costs and risky AAA projects are cited as the main reasons for this withdrawal. The fact that TiMi’s Los Angeles-based Team Kaiju studio had previously closed suggests this trend is no coincidence.

The closure of TiMi Montreal is not just the end of a studio; it could also be a sign of a reassessment of large-budget global investments. As the balance in the gaming industry shifts rapidly, the question of sustainability, especially in the AAA sector, has resurfaced.

Read More: Elon Musk has Delayed the Grok Update due to Baldur’s Gate 3