The original team is no longer there
Now at the head of Liquid Swords, Sundberg spoke out on this subject by reacting to a leak around Contrabandby relaying an article from the MP1st site which highlights images of this unfinished project. The co-founder of Avalanche then expresses his sadness to see this game being thrown into the trash, and hopes to see it one day be taken over by someone else, while affirming that the situation around a Just Cause 5 would be very different :
“ My team and I presented Contraband to Microsoft in 2017 (and they signed the contract). The project has obviously evolved a lot since then, but it would have been great to see it released one day. Just Cause 5 would be impossible, as very few members of the original team are still around. »
And it is true that the studio is currently not in a period where it can hire with all its might for such a project, which would not have the same flavor anyway without a good part of the saga’s creative team. Who knows, maybe what’s left of the studio will one day want to get into it, but hearing Sundberg, we shouldn’t place too much hope on it.