Microsoft cancels Avalanche Studios’ Contraband

Earlier this Summer Microsoft shocked everybody when they announced that a ton of their ongoing Xbox projects would be cancelled, with just some of the victims including Perfect Dark and The Initiative; Rare’s Everwild; Zenimax Online’s Project Blackbird and Turn10 – to name a few. One project which was said to be safe from all this was Avalanche Studios’ Contraband. Unfortunately, it seems as though it too has now been cancelled.

As reported by known industry insider Jason Schreier via BlueSky, “Xbox is canceling Contraband, announced in 2021 from Avalanche Studios (Just Cause), after four years of radio silence.”

While perhaps in and of itself not a surprise given the sheer number of recent cancellations, following the mass lay-offs in June it was revealed that Contraband was still in development – with the team at Avalanche actively hiring roles for the project.

As with many of Microsoft’s recent moves, it appears as though the publisher / console maker may have been trying to spread out the bad news over a longer period of time.

That said, the cancellation of Contraband appears to have been another surprise announcement from Microsoft, owing to the aforementioned job listings from just a few weeks ago.

At this point, it feels as though Xbox has cancelled more games than it is releasing. Hopefully we learn more about the ill-fated Contraband and why exactly it was ultimately cancelled. Knowing Microsoft however, it’s probably so they can continue to invest further in AI or something.

KitGuru says: Were you surprised that Contraband wasn’t canned during the previous wave of lay-offs? Why do you think they waited till later to cancel the project? What other upcoming Xbox titles are you concerned about? Let us know down below.

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