TiMi Montreal Has Been Shut Down After 5 Years Without Having Released Any Games

by

TiMi Montreal, a game studio started in 2021 by former Assassin’s Creed director Ashraf Ismail, has shut down without ever releasing a game. The studio announced the closure on LinkedIn, but the post has since been removed, as reported by Stephen Totilo of Game File. Interestingly, Ismail’s LinkedIn profile still shows him as the studio’s creative director.

Over the weekend, neither TiMi Studio Group nor its parent company, Tencent, has commented on reports of the studio closing.

I was so excited when TiMi Montreal was announced! They said they were building a huge new game – a proper AAA title – and it sounded really ambitious. Apparently, it wasn’t just going to be a standard game, but would blend the freedom of open-world games with the constantly-updated feel of live-service titles. And the cool part is, they were working on it with the team over at TiMi Seattle, so it was a real collaboration!

As a fan, it’s really interesting to me that this studio opened when it did. It’s the third one TiMi Studio Group has launched in North America, and it feels like it was part of a bigger trend. A lot of Chinese tech companies were investing heavily after the pandemic, and gaming was huge because everyone was stuck at home! There was just a lot of money moving around in the industry at the time, and it’s cool to see this studio as part of that growth.

The recent shutdown of TiMi Montreal might suggest that Tencent is reducing its investment in game development studios located in Western countries. However, without official confirmation from Tencent, this remains just a possibility.

Around the same time last year, NetEase, another major gaming company in China, also appeared to be reducing its investments in Western game developers. David Kaye, founder of the venture capital firm F4 Fund, suggested this was due to changing decisions by company leaders at NetEase and increasing global political uncertainty.

According to Kaye, China is facing setbacks due to rising global tensions, unsuccessful investments, and decisions made by company leaders. A significant investment strategy, responsible for numerous deals in recent years, is now reportedly withdrawing all investments from outside of China. While some of these investments may be sold, others could prove difficult to offload.

NetEase clarified that it wasn’t ending all of its gaming investments, highlighting the success of games like the hero shooter Marvel Rivals and the sci-fi survival game Once Human as examples.

NetEase confirmed it remains committed to expanding its business internationally. The company stated that its strategy, launched in 2022, of both developing games internally and investing in other companies to reach global markets, is continuing to move forward successfully.

In 2024, we released popular games like Once Human and Marvel Rivals, developed by our in-house studios. These launches showcase NetEase’s strong game development capabilities and the talent of our teams, proving we can create games players around the world enjoy.

Since its release, Marvel Rivals has done well and continues to receive updates. These updates add new maps and characters from across the Marvel universe to the game.

Read More

2026-02-23 17:41