Former Arkane Austin boss condemns Microsoft decision to close studio

1 week ago

Players attack a vampire successful Redfall that's floating extracurricular a window.

The erstwhile president of crippled developer Arkane has travel retired to condemn Microsoft’s closure of Arkane Austin earlier this year, saying that it “was not a bully decision.”

Microsoft acquired Arkane genitor institution ZeniMax Media for $7.5 cardinal successful 2021, which besides brought studios for illustration Bethesda Softworks and subsidiaries for illustration id Software (Doom), Tango Gameworks (Hi-Fi Rush), and MachineGames (Indiana Jones and nan Great Circle) nether nan Xbox umbrella. However, Microsoft unopen down Arkane Austin on pinch Tango, Mighty Doom’s Alpha Dog Studios, and soul improvement workplace Roundhouse Games earlier this year.

Raphael Colantonio, who founded Arkane successful 1999 but near successful 2017, said successful an question and reply pinch PC Gamer that Microsoft closing down nan Austin branch of nan workplace (the Lyon agency is still up and running) was a shame owed to nan talent that had to beryllium cut.

“I deliberation if you look a small bit, it’s evident that Arkane Austin was a very typical group of group that person made immoderate cool things and that could propulsion it disconnected again,” he said. “I deliberation it was a determination that conscionable came down to, ‘We request to trim something.’ Was it to please nan investors, nan banal market? They’re playing a different game.”

Colantonio’s past task pinch Arkane was Prey, a scary immersive sim that encapsulates everything awesome astir Arkane’s crippled creation traditions, but its income underperformed. Arkane Austin moved connected to Redfall, which ended up arsenic a disaster for Xbox some critically and financially erstwhile it released successful 2023. Once Arkane Austin shuttered, improvement on Redfall ended and Microsoft offered refunds.

Colantonio founded Wolfeye Studios successful 2019, and is currently moving connected an untitled action RPG that looks for illustration a transverse betwixt Fallout and Arkane’s Dishonored series. So while he wasn’t location to spot nan closure successful person, he knows that thing for illustration it will ne'er hap again.

“Recreating a very typical group for illustration that is, I would situation to say, impossible. It takes forever. When you person that magic of Harvey [Smith] and Ricardo [Bare] etc. that each travel together, it’s a circumstantial infinitesimal successful clip and abstraction that conscionable worked retired this way, that took everlastingly to reach. Those group together tin really make magic. It’s not like, ‘Doesn’t matter, we’ll conscionable rehire.’ No, effort it. That’s what large groups do each nan time. They effort to conscionable prosecute massively and overpay group to create those magic groups. It doesn’t activity for illustration this. So to me, that was stupid. But what do I know?”

In a post connected X (formerly Twitter) Colantonio added that he stood by his comments. “I sound my sentiment erstwhile asked and I person empathy for my friends and erstwhile labor who were still moving astatine Arkane Austin.”

Arkane Lyon is 1 of galore studios correct now moving connected a Marvel crippled project: Marvel’s Blade, which is still early successful development.

Carli Velocci

Carli is simply a technology, culture, and games editor and journalist. They were nan Gaming Lead and Copy Chief astatine Windows Central…

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IGN revealed these studios' closures had happened and shared an soul email astir them written by Matt Booty, nan caput of Xbox Game Studios. The 4 studios impacted are Redfall's Arkane Austin, Mighty Doom's Alpha Dog Studios, soul improvement workplace Roundhouse Games, and Hi-Fi Rush's Tango Gameworks.

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Major Redfall spot adds 60 fps capacity mode, a stealth overhaul, and more

The 4 leader characters successful Redfall dragging a vampire, who's reaching towards nan camera pinch clawed hands.

Xbox exclusive Redfall conscionable sewage a awesome patch. The update adds a long-awaited 60 frames per 2nd (fps) mode to nan game, arsenic good arsenic a heap of value of life upgrades and an overhaul to stealth gameplay.
Among tons of different problems, nan dame infamously only ran astatine 30 fps astatine motorboat connected Xbox Series X and S. While Arkane Studios promised a capacity mode spot was successful nan useful anterior to release, it didn't get until today.

On October 6, Arkane Studios and Bethesda dropped Update 2 for Redfall. The astir notable summation is Performance Mode, which lets players prioritize framework complaint complete solution to yet get nan crippled to tally astatine 60 fps connected consoles. Simply navigate to nan Video tab wrong Redfall's settings paper to activate it. The spot notes for this update declare it brings improved stableness connected PC, successful summation to solutions to memory-based crashes and AMD GPU-related graphics corruption. The update besides contains immoderate caller gameplay tweaks to hopefully make nan acquisition better.
Redfall will now promote stealth more, arsenic Arkane added nan expertise to sneak up connected and do stealth takedowns connected enemies and made it clearer which weapons are silenced successful menus. It besides added much options for players to fine-tune purpose assets and dormant zones while aiming, accrued nan number of enemies wandering nan game's unfastened world, and added unsocial ping colors for each subordinate successful a multiplayer squad. You tin cheque retired nan afloat database of spot notes to spot nan further tweaks and bug fixes made.
Redfall had a notoriously rocky motorboat this year, truthful it was difficult for anyone extracurricular of Microsoft to genuinely cognize whether aliases not improvements to nan crippled would really beryllium delivered. Bethesda's Pete Hines had antecedently claimed it wouldn't wantonness nan game, and this update is our first existent denotation that it's true. While this isn't a Phantom Liberty-level rework for Redfall, it surely seems for illustration nan crippled is now successful nan champion information it's been successful since launch.
Redfall is disposable now for PC, Xbox Series X, and Xbox Series S.