Tencent’s TiMi Studio Group has closed its Montreal team

TiMi Studio Group, the Tencent-owned developer best known for mobile hits like Call of Duty: Mobile, has reportedly shut down its Montreal studio. The news comes via Game File’s report, which says the closure had been expected internally and that talk of an imminent shutdown resurfaced late last week.

A TiMi Montreal programmer also posted on LinkedIn that the studio had closed and that staff had known it was coming “for some time,” according to Game File. That LinkedIn post is no longer available. Another former employee replied publicly, praising the team’s work and camaraderie.

Game File says it reached out to Tencent and TiMi for comment but didn’t receive one.

TiMi Montreal was founded in 2021 and was led by former Assassin’s Creed creative director Ashraf Ismail. The studio didn’t ship a game during its run. They’ve been around for nearly 5 years and haven’t shipped a single game, which says a lot for the current state of gaming. Namely that development cycles have gotten very long and creating a decent product is harder than ever. At least for larger studios.

This isn’t the first recent TiMi-related studio closure under Tencent. In 2023, Tencent shuttered Team Kaiju, TiMi’s Los Angeles-based studio, which had been working on an AAA multiplayer project.