Arkane Lyon loses her little brother
Last Tuesday we were shocked to learn that Arkane Austin had been shut down by Microsoft. Indeed, we would never have bet on such a long longevity after the end of the catastrophic Redfall. On the other hand, we can salute the humanity of the HR department, for having waited for the team to celebrate the first anniversary of the game before sending the dismissal email. What a shame, the “Hero Pass” included in the 100-ball version will never see the light of day… Well, the unfortunate people who fell for this version will be reimbursed, as indicated in a official communication from Arkane Studios, now located only in Lyon. Moreover, the French studio is not, a priorinot impacted – except morally -, and he continue to hire for their GST project on Bladethe Marvel hero.
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The reason given for Arkane Austin's closure has not been disclosed, but as Jason Schreier reports in his last articleit is not because of the poor performance of Redfall. And he continues with “ before its closure, Arkane [Austin] was looking to return to its roots by offering a new immersive sim, such as a new installment of the Dishonored series, according to those interviewed “. A niche game that would be released in far too long and difficult to monetize with season passes and skins galore? It's not hard to imagine that Microsoft preferred to cut corners before it was too late…
In any case, it does us a little something to see this name disappear, because it is still the studio which created one of the best immersive sims of all time: Prey (2017). But let's face it: the people who worked on this masterpiece, for the most part, jumped ship before last year's sinking. Let's hope that the others find work quickly and that they can finally work on what is important to them (and us): immersive sims.
In addition to our little darling, three other studios were removed from the list, including Tango Gameworks. He had realized Ghostwire Tokyowhich we found OK, but nothing more, and more recently, HiFi Rush, a critical as well as commercial success, according to Matt Booty, head of Xbox Games Studios. This does not give more reasons for the closure of the Japanese studio in particular. The only thing mentioned is quite vague, since it could equally apply to many other subsidiaries: “ We are making these difficult decisions in order to create the capacity to increase investments in other parts of our portfolio and focus on our priority plays “. But what connects the Austin and Tokyo studios is the release of their last game about a year earlier, and that they were in the recruiting phase to present new projects. Always by Jason Schreier, management would have been afraid of being overwhelmed and too scattered to properly manage so many new games. The poor little ones.
Obviously, this news causes a lot of reaction on the networks and everyone has their own little statement. We share with you the thoughts of Dillon Rogersone of the developers of Gloomwoodwho briefly forgot the principle of capitalism, and that the goal of a company is always to make more profits, whatever the consequences.
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If you want more details about the case, you can consult the IGN article (in English) which presents, among other things, the email sent to ex-employees, as well as Jason Schreier's article (also in English) who was able to get feedback from the last public meeting at ZeniMax and who still announces future cuts in the workforce.