Eidos Montreal, the Square Enix-owned studio that developed Deus Ex: Human Revolution and is working on the Guardians of the Galaxy game, is switching to a four-day work week. The change also applies to Eidos-Sherbrooke, Eidos Montreal's support studio.
The studio announced the change in a blog post, where Head of Studio David Anfossi said the move will help create a sustainable work environment.
"The idea is not to condense the working hours into 4 days, but rather to review our ways of doing things and our quality time invested, with the aim of working better," Anfossi said. "Above all, we want to increase the productivity and well-being of our employees."
The four-day, 32 hour work week will not impact any employee's salaries. Anfossi says one example of how the studio will make up the extra day is cutting unnecessary time spent in meetings.
Eidos Montreal is one of the first examples we've seen of a Triple-A studio transitioning to the four-day work week. Recently, Bugsnax developer Young Horses announced they were moving to the 32 hour work week as well. However, the studio said the shift was easy for them because of their small staff.
As of 2018, GI.biz reported Eidos Montreal was the largest Square Enix team with over 500 members, making this a much bigger move to pull off.
Eidos Montreal's Guardians of the Galaxy launches October 26 on PS5, Xbox Series X|S, PS4, Xbox One, Switch (via cloud streaming), and PC. For more, check out our Guardians of the Galaxy impressions.
Logan Plant is a freelance writer for IGN. You can find him on Twitter @LoganJPlant.