By Sagar V. Mankar 
Detroit: Become Human, the popular sci-fi thriller game from Quantic Dream, has reached a major milestone with over 11 million copies sold worldwide. This news comes during a challenging time when many game studios owned by NetEase are facing cuts and closures.
Guillaume de Fondaumière, CEO of Quantic Dream, shared this achievement on LinkedIn while addressing concerns about the studio’s future. His announcement was meant to reassure fans worried about Quantic Dream after NetEase, which owns the studio, made significant cuts to other teams.
According to de Fondaumière, Quantic Dream hasn’t been affected by the recent layoffs happening at other NetEase-owned studios. Instead, the company is actually doing better than ever, reporting its highest revenue in its 28-year history during 2024. This success is largely thanks to strong sales of its older games, especially Detroit: Become Human, which sold an additional 2 million copies across PlayStation and PC last year.
“In 2024, we achieved the highest revenue in our history, driven by the exceptional performance of our back-catalogue titles. Notably, Detroit: Become Human reached 11 million units in global sales across PlayStation and PC last year, a remarkable 2 million increase year-on-year, demonstrating the lasting appeal and quality of our titles,” de Fondaumière wrote on LinkedIn.
The CEO went on to reassure everyone that both their Paris and Montreal studios remain unaffected by the cuts and are continuing to work on their projects at full speed.
“We were deeply saddened to learn about the recent layoffs and studio closures affecting some of the NetEase group’s divisions. Our thoughts are with everyone impacted, and we sincerely hope that they quickly find new opportunities.” de Fondaumière added. “David Cage and I would like to express our gratitude to the fans and friends who have reached out to us in recent days regarding QUANTIC DREAM. We want to reassure everyone that our studios in Paris and Montreal remain unaffected. We are continuing to develop our projects at full pace, with several open positions available in both locations”
This statement comes at a time when NetEase has been scaling back its international operations. The Chinese gaming giant recently laid off its US department responsible for Marvel Rivals character and level design. Before that, NetEase suspended operations at Untold Worlds in Canada last November and cut funding for Seattle-based Jar of Sparks in January. In early February, Sweden’s Liquid Swords announced layoffs, blaming “shifting market conditions.”
These moves naturally raised questions about Quantic Dream’s status, as NetEase first bought a minority stake in the studio in 2019 before acquiring it completely in 2022.
While de Fondaumière didn’t specifically mention Star Wars Eclipse in his statement, he did note that the studio is “continuing to develop our projects at full pace” with work “progressing as planned.” Star Wars Eclipse, announced in 2021, still lacks a release date more than four years after its reveal. Updates on the game have been scarce, with the studio only describing it as “simmering” in October 2023.
“The developments of our current projects are progressing as planned, and we are fully committed to delivering and launching these innovative, high-quality titles in the future,” the CEO explained.
Speaking of Detroit: Become Human, the game has been a consistent success since its initial PS4 release. The game later came to PC in December 2019 and follows Quantic Dream’s previous interactive titles Heavy Rain and Beyond: Two Souls. The game received generally positive reviews, with a 78 score on Metacritic and an impressive 93.85% positive rating from over 122,000 reviews on Steam.
The Detroit universe also expanded to other media with a spin-off manga titled “Detroit: Become Human Tokyo Stories,” which follows an android idol named Reina in Japan during the events of the main game.
Despite its continued success, there has been no announcement of a sequel, remaster, or PS5-native version of Detroit: Become Human. Currently, PS5 owners can play the game through backward compatibility using the PS4 Pro version.