The development of Quantic Dream’s next title, Star Wars Eclipse, is reportedly a struggle. It’s still plodding along, but new information suggests developers are making little progress following the studio’s acquisition by Chinese company NetEase a few years ago. It was more than four years ago when a cinematic trailer for the game was released at The Game Awards 2021. Back then, the game was still “early in development”.

We imagine that Quantic Dream has redirected a portion of its workforce to develop Spellcasters Chronicles, a 3v3 strategy game now in early access. However, it’s safe to say that its late February launch has failed to garner much interest, with a peak of just 888 concurrent players at the time of writing, according to SteamDB. That’s despite it being a free-to-play title, though we wouldn’t be surprised if you’re hearing its name for the very first time; it doesn’t seem to be well-marketed at all.

Star Wars Eclipse may be lacking investment

“Quantic Dream is not in a good place right now,” says Mike Straw of the Insider Gaming podcast. The French game developer known for choice-driven titles such as Heavy Rain and Detroit: Become Human is reportedly struggling to make progress on Star Wars Eclipse after the company was acquired by NetEase in August 2022. Straw claims “NetEase is divesting a lot of their Western studios,” adding that “they don’t know what they want”.

“What I’ve been told about Eclipse is that it is very slow-going, where they are making very little progress over months. That’s why you saw games like Star Wars: [Galactic] Racers come out, out of nowhere and it’s zooming along. It is at a snail’s pace for development of Eclipse. They have a good chunk done, but for what they still need to do, it has not been going all that well.”

Mike Straw, Insider Gaming Weekly

Straw says NetEase is ” figuring out what they want to do” with Quantic Dream, even suggesting that the French game studio may be sold – but “they don’t want to shut it down”. However, Straw says “it would not surprise me” to see NetEase selling off Quantic Dreams in the next couple of years. “I wouldn’t say it [Eclipse] is in development hell, but it’s very slow,” he adds.

About the Author

Jack Goodall

At PC Guide, Jack is mostly responsible for reporting on hardware deals. He also specializes in monitors, TVs, and headsets and can be found putting his findings together in a review or best-of guide.