'Deus Ex Go' and other Square Enix mobile games are shutting down
Within less than a couple of months, you'll no longer be able to access Deus Ex Go, the turn-based puzzle game entry in the cyberpunk-dystopian franchise. Deus Ex Go was developed by Square Enix Montreal, which was acquired by Swedish game company Embracer Group back in May. While Embracer rebranded the studio to Onoma in October, reports came out less than a month later that it was going to shut down the mobile games developer. Now, Onoma has announced on Twitter that Deus Ex Go, Arena Battle Champions, Hitman Sniper: The Shadows and Space Invaders: Hidden Heroes will no longer be accessible after January 4th, 2023.
Further, they will be removed from Google Play and the Apple App Store on December 1st, and you can only play them until their final day if you already have them on your device. If you fire up any of those games, you'll find that in-game purchases are no longer available, as well. You also won't be getting any refunds if you don't use any in-game purchases you still have before the games shut down.
— Onoma (@StudioOnoma) November 22, 2022
The then-Square Enix Montreal studio released Deus Ex Go back in 2016. To play, you'll have to move series protagonist Adam Jensen between the nodes on a hexagonal grid and have him hack computers or activate his augmentations. Shortly after it was released, Square Enix released an update that allowed you to create your own puzzles and challenges. It's a pretty old game by this point, but as Kotaku says, it was perhaps one of the best entries in the franchise.
While the Embracer acquisition has led to the death of Deus Ex Go, it might also give rise to a new mainline Deus Ex title. The game publisher, which has been snapping up studios and IPs left and right over the past couple of years, also purchased Eidos Montreal as part of the same deal that gave it ownership of Square Enix Montreal. Eidos said it plans to revive the Deus Ex series when the deal was announced, and more recent reports said a game is now in very early development.