Xbox Game Studios has reportedly canceled Contraband, the next game from Just Cause developer Avalanche Studios, following four years of silence from both studios regarding the game.
That's according to Bloomberg's Jason Schreier, who reported the cancellation on Bluesky. Given that we haven't heard anything about Contraband for four years, its cancellation is perhaps unsurprising, but it's a shame nonetheless.
Of course, we didn't know that much about Contraband to begin with. When it was announced in 2021, Avalanche said the game, which was to be a "co-op smuggler's paradise", would be the studio's "most ambitious and spectacular game to date", but beyond that, not much was revealed about the project.
Avalanche did say that the game would utilize Just Cause's Apex Engine, and as far as we knew, the game would be an Xbox Series X|S exclusive, although given Xbox's recent moves towards platform agnosticism, that may not have been the case for long.
Contraband's cancellation comes after a massive wave of Microsoft layoffs that saw around 9,000 company employees lose their jobs, as well as high-profile game and studio shutdowns under the Xbox brand.
These included the cancellation of Rare's Everwild, as well as the shuttering of The Initiative's reportedly troubled Perfect Dark reboot, along with the closure of that studio. As far as we know, Rare remains operational, although it doesn't have any active projects that have been announced publicly.
According to what a Microsoft spokesperson told Schreier, despite these high-profile shutdowns, Hideo Kojima's OD, which will serve as a collaboration with Xbox Game Studios, is still in development (for the time being, at least).
It's unclear what's next for Avalanche Studios after the cancellation of Contraband, but for the time being at least, you won't be visiting the studio's smuggler's paradise anytime soon. Stay tuned for more on this and all other things Xbox.
