Xbox's Contraband "On Hold", Likely Cancelled

contraband, xbox

Another Xbox game has been hit with at the very least a lengthy delay and possible a cancellation, this time an Xbox publishing game, Contraband.

The news comes via Jason Schrier at Bloomberg as he says the publisher decided to cancel the title. Contraband, which was being developed by Avalanche Studios, best known for the Just Cause franchise, was announced back in 2021. Since that initial announcement things had been virtually radio silent around Contraband.

Meanwhile Game File's Stephen Totilo is reporting that the game is "on hold" stopping short of using the word cancelled.

Avalanche Puts Out Statement

After these reports begun to surface Avalanche released a statement of their own on their website. The statement reads:

"Over the past several years, Avalanche Studios Group and Xbox Game Studios Publishing have collaborated on Contraband. Active development has now stopped while we evaluate the project’s future. We’re thankful for the excitement we’ve seen from the community since we announced and will give an update on what’s next as soon as we can."

An image from the Contraband announcement trailer back in 2021

Last year Avalanche closed 2 of their own studios affecting roughly 9% of their workforce. Hopefully this news won't lead to further cuts.

This sounds like perhaps Xbox has simply backed out as the publisher and Avalanche is hoping someone else will pick it up, but that's purely speculation on my part at this point.

Contraband was described as a 4 player co-op shooter and was a "smugglers paradise" set in the 70s. It had a lot of promise and intrigue from the reveal trailer though we never saw any gameplay. The game has reportedly been in development for 5 years.

If it is indeed cancelled this adds to the list of recent cancellations at Xbox. Just last month Xbox was hit with mass layoffs and multiple projects were canned including Perfect Dark & Everwild.

Both of those projects had been mostly radio silent as well. Xbox could be re-evaluating all those earlier announced projects and seeing what makes sense to continue. There has been some worry about games such as State Of Decay 3 and OD, but those games seem to still be in development.