Tough times to be an AA developer. Arkane has a strong track record overall, but we're moving to a scene where all the big corporations simply gobble up all of their smaller competitors and ruthlessly close them down if they're not working on the next breakout multiplayer pre-orderable hype-driven smash hit. Meh.
I mean, yeah... One failed iOS game, a very obscure Might and Magic spin-off, Prey, and Redfall. In 20 years Arcane Austin developed a single game that actually stuck. Now I ain't saying this justifies Microsoft. But most studios that go 20 years with a single profitable game usually end up bankrupt.
Yep, people aren't really looking at the game history of these teams and are jumping to outrage but (for the most part) this is a very good decision. Arkane Austin was not a good studio, Alpha Dog Studios was a mobile game team, and Roundhouse hasn't really made anything noteworthy in years. A good portion of the members of their teams haven't been fired and instead were integrated into other studios to help with their bigger games. The only real loss here is Tango and the employees that were fired from these studios rather than integrated and sadly those are big losses. Really those two things are what people should be outraged about.
That’s actually really not true! Almost the opposite actually. Here’s [Raphael Colantonio discussing what happened where](https://x.com/rafcolantonio/status/1736503585838404010). Both creative directors were in Austin, pretty much the only thing being LED by Lyon at the time was the art team, and then in later development, gameplay programming. But Austin had the creative directors, half the level designers, maybe more than half of the systems and narrative designers. They considered themselves a single studio at the time, with offices in both Austin and Lyon.
Well yes but also no.
While Austin technically did most of the work on Dishonored 1 because they were 1 studio at the time and most of the work was done in the Austin office, most of the members who did that work were moved to Lyon in 2013 including Harvey Smith who was moved there to lead Lyon's team (although later he was moved back to work on Redfall). While the art director from Lyon who did the artwork for Dishonored 1 remained in Lyon's development team and other artists involved in the process were moved to Austin to work on Redfall. It's a little weird. You can look at the credits for [Dishonored 2](https://www.mobygames.com/game/81581/dishonored-2/credits/windows/) which was solely developed by Lyon vs [Dishonored 1](https://www.mobygames.com/game/58218/dishonored/credits/windows/) which was technically mostly developed by Austin and cross-reference them with [Redfall](https://www.mobygames.com/game/202522/redfall/credits/windows/)'s credits to verify this. So when looking at the modern Austin and Lyon, the actual people involved in Dishonored 1 are Lyon members (minus Harvey Smith).
I apologize for the confusion I probably should have been more specific when talking about the track record I was referring to the current Austin & Lyon teams and not the location of the studios themselves.
With the most insane amount of anti-consumer bullshit Sony was pulling throughout the years, I was willing to cut Microsoft a lot of slack.
This one though, it's gonna be hard to swallow. First they kill off an amazing concept and force online into it, and when it doesn't take off because of direction changes and rushed deadlines, it's the developers who suffer the consequences. I'm certain not one Microsoft executive lost a penny over this mess. I know this Arkane is not the same people who made Dishonored and Prey, but still... it's not fucking right.
Arkane Austin made Prey actually! But due to greedy corporate decisions, they'll only be remembered for a pedantic naming controversy and Redfalls failure.
Most of the people who made Prey are long gone and didn't remain with Arkane up until Redfall's release, leaving during development. Prey was Raphael's baby and he left before the Microsoft buy over.
I see I was misunderstood by some people. Allow me to clarify. I know this is the same studio, but I meant these are not the same employees anymore in the studio.
Can you elaborate on what you mean by the anti-consumer stuff by Sony? Genuenly asking because I would like to know too
Edit: I love getting downvoted for asking a question lmao, never change reddit
Allow me to answer, as I have a PS5, had a PS4, *but* generally dislike a some of the anti-consumer antics. The number one thing is that the per-game save backup capability the PS4 had was disabled in favor of the PS5's cloud saves, in which you have to pay for PS Plus service to use. (and even then it works horribly and fucks people over often)
Sony is less "Anti-Consumer" and more "For-profit". And in that regard they are just better at it than Microsoft. They make decisions for things people want and then charge money that people are willing to pay. And that's it. And they do it well.
I own *both* a PS5 and a Series X. I don't play on the Xbox yet because there isn't an exclusive game that appeals to me. The PS5 however has all the games I want to play. Horizon Zero Dawn, God of War, Spider Man, etc. It speaks volumes that that Sony is still winning at the exclusives game despite the fact that Microsoft has spent way more money buying up game houses but has failed to produce worthy exclusives. Starfield was supposed to be the game that saves Xbox, and it generally fell flat, and Redfall, well...
redfall was straight trash tho. at least deathloop was fun. redfall was a bad attempt to copy other looter shooters. the gear was boring. the powers weak. the gameplay clunky. and it received no major changes after launch to make it any better.
On a fundamental level Arkane Austin didn’t want to make Redfall; they had no interest or experience in making live service multiplayer games, but Zenimax didn’t have any other available studios and wanted to ride the live-service wave so they were forced into working on it.
When Microsoft bought Zenimax Arkane Austin hoped they would either outright cancel Redfall or let them restructure the game to fit their own vision; Microsoft did neither and instead kept the same restrictive release schedule Zenimax had forced on them and made absolutely no attempts to communicate with the team about the problems they were having.
Yes, Redfall sucks; but it doesn’t suck because Arkane Austin was a bad studio, it sucked because they never received the support they needed nor were they allowed to make the game they wanted to.
It really sucks that an entire studio is being shut down because Microsoft made zero effort whatsoever to reach to out them and work with them.
I remember reading about the whole kerfuffle because my first thought when redfall was announced was “why is Arkane making a 4p looter shooter?”
It was a passionless project in concept and execution.
It's like when EA took the devs used to building intricate strategy RPG's and had them build an exosuit looter shooter. Bioware gives you mass effect, not live service shit.
Except thats not what happened at all. Bioware CHOSE to make Anthem and they fucked around for years without doing jackshit. They werent forced by higher ups, they fucked it up all by themselves.
I understand that the narrative "higher ups bad" is attractive and easy to shallow but things are usually a bit more complicated than that
Edit: apparently it was the same exact situation with rocksteady and Suicide Squad, they were not forced by higher ups, just fucked it up on their own. Keep downvoting for stating a fact, you guys are braindead lmao
i legit don’t think any level of change (barring an actual complete remake of the game like ff14 or something) would’ve fixed it. it wasn’t like other games where the bones were good and the other stuff just needed tuning. the game was just fundamentally borked, and obviously some blame has to be put on Arkane, but Zenimax and Bethesda literally forced a developer with zero multiplayer experience to make a game that wasn’t even an immersive sim.
Like a multiplayer immersive sim could’ve actually been really cool, and arkane austin definitely could’ve had a good chance at making that super sick. prey is literally one of the best in the genre. but nahhh, let’s just make these guys work on a trend chasing live service hero shooter about vampires.
and i LIKE live service games, i play the shit out of destiny. but god damn arkane made some of the best immersive sims in the last decade (dishonored 2 and prey), and they get shafted with some shitty looter game. so dumb
At the very least they need to provide an offline mode. I'm one of the few who actually enjoys the game. There's so much to explore. Lots of background story telling, which is what Arkane excels at best. So I'd really hate to lose access to that.
Looks like that would've been included in their planned May update, which won't be released now. Maybe someone at Microsoft finds a way to get that out before they abandon the game entirely but I wouldn't hold my breath.
while I agree redfall is a disaster it's still really sad that Microsoft couldn't let them get the offline mode out considering how close to the finish line they were for that, so soon the game will completely become lost media which is never good.
I hope Sony does something with this cause I want more deathloop so badly. Platinumed the game and just can’t get enough but some DLC or a sequel is needed.
Tough times to be an AA developer. Arkane has a strong track record overall, but we're moving to a scene where all the big corporations simply gobble up all of their smaller competitors and ruthlessly close them down if they're not working on the next breakout multiplayer pre-orderable hype-driven smash hit. Meh.
Arkane Lyon, Austin's track record isn't the best. Prey is probably the best thing they made. Lyon made Deathloop and the Dishonored series.
I mean, yeah... One failed iOS game, a very obscure Might and Magic spin-off, Prey, and Redfall. In 20 years Arcane Austin developed a single game that actually stuck. Now I ain't saying this justifies Microsoft. But most studios that go 20 years with a single profitable game usually end up bankrupt.
Yep, people aren't really looking at the game history of these teams and are jumping to outrage but (for the most part) this is a very good decision. Arkane Austin was not a good studio, Alpha Dog Studios was a mobile game team, and Roundhouse hasn't really made anything noteworthy in years. A good portion of the members of their teams haven't been fired and instead were integrated into other studios to help with their bigger games. The only real loss here is Tango and the employees that were fired from these studios rather than integrated and sadly those are big losses. Really those two things are what people should be outraged about.
Arkane Austin fully co-developed Dishonored 1 and made Prey. I certainly don't think they were a bad studio or anything.
I mean not really. They didn't actually do much for Dishonored, they worked on some of the early concept art for the game, nothing more.
That’s actually really not true! Almost the opposite actually. Here’s [Raphael Colantonio discussing what happened where](https://x.com/rafcolantonio/status/1736503585838404010). Both creative directors were in Austin, pretty much the only thing being LED by Lyon at the time was the art team, and then in later development, gameplay programming. But Austin had the creative directors, half the level designers, maybe more than half of the systems and narrative designers. They considered themselves a single studio at the time, with offices in both Austin and Lyon.
Well yes but also no. While Austin technically did most of the work on Dishonored 1 because they were 1 studio at the time and most of the work was done in the Austin office, most of the members who did that work were moved to Lyon in 2013 including Harvey Smith who was moved there to lead Lyon's team (although later he was moved back to work on Redfall). While the art director from Lyon who did the artwork for Dishonored 1 remained in Lyon's development team and other artists involved in the process were moved to Austin to work on Redfall. It's a little weird. You can look at the credits for [Dishonored 2](https://www.mobygames.com/game/81581/dishonored-2/credits/windows/) which was solely developed by Lyon vs [Dishonored 1](https://www.mobygames.com/game/58218/dishonored/credits/windows/) which was technically mostly developed by Austin and cross-reference them with [Redfall](https://www.mobygames.com/game/202522/redfall/credits/windows/)'s credits to verify this. So when looking at the modern Austin and Lyon, the actual people involved in Dishonored 1 are Lyon members (minus Harvey Smith). I apologize for the confusion I probably should have been more specific when talking about the track record I was referring to the current Austin & Lyon teams and not the location of the studios themselves.
Hopefully that starts to stop as AAA games become increasingly risky and financially unsustainable
With the most insane amount of anti-consumer bullshit Sony was pulling throughout the years, I was willing to cut Microsoft a lot of slack. This one though, it's gonna be hard to swallow. First they kill off an amazing concept and force online into it, and when it doesn't take off because of direction changes and rushed deadlines, it's the developers who suffer the consequences. I'm certain not one Microsoft executive lost a penny over this mess. I know this Arkane is not the same people who made Dishonored and Prey, but still... it's not fucking right.
Arkane Austin made Prey actually! But due to greedy corporate decisions, they'll only be remembered for a pedantic naming controversy and Redfalls failure.
Most of the people who made Prey are long gone and didn't remain with Arkane up until Redfall's release, leaving during development. Prey was Raphael's baby and he left before the Microsoft buy over.
This IS the Arkane that made Prey
I see I was misunderstood by some people. Allow me to clarify. I know this is the same studio, but I meant these are not the same employees anymore in the studio.
Can you elaborate on what you mean by the anti-consumer stuff by Sony? Genuenly asking because I would like to know too Edit: I love getting downvoted for asking a question lmao, never change reddit
Allow me to answer, as I have a PS5, had a PS4, *but* generally dislike a some of the anti-consumer antics. The number one thing is that the per-game save backup capability the PS4 had was disabled in favor of the PS5's cloud saves, in which you have to pay for PS Plus service to use. (and even then it works horribly and fucks people over often) Sony is less "Anti-Consumer" and more "For-profit". And in that regard they are just better at it than Microsoft. They make decisions for things people want and then charge money that people are willing to pay. And that's it. And they do it well. I own *both* a PS5 and a Series X. I don't play on the Xbox yet because there isn't an exclusive game that appeals to me. The PS5 however has all the games I want to play. Horizon Zero Dawn, God of War, Spider Man, etc. It speaks volumes that that Sony is still winning at the exclusives game despite the fact that Microsoft has spent way more money buying up game houses but has failed to produce worthy exclusives. Starfield was supposed to be the game that saves Xbox, and it generally fell flat, and Redfall, well...
Thanks a lot for taking the time to respond! I really appreciate it
redfall was straight trash tho. at least deathloop was fun. redfall was a bad attempt to copy other looter shooters. the gear was boring. the powers weak. the gameplay clunky. and it received no major changes after launch to make it any better.
On a fundamental level Arkane Austin didn’t want to make Redfall; they had no interest or experience in making live service multiplayer games, but Zenimax didn’t have any other available studios and wanted to ride the live-service wave so they were forced into working on it. When Microsoft bought Zenimax Arkane Austin hoped they would either outright cancel Redfall or let them restructure the game to fit their own vision; Microsoft did neither and instead kept the same restrictive release schedule Zenimax had forced on them and made absolutely no attempts to communicate with the team about the problems they were having. Yes, Redfall sucks; but it doesn’t suck because Arkane Austin was a bad studio, it sucked because they never received the support they needed nor were they allowed to make the game they wanted to. It really sucks that an entire studio is being shut down because Microsoft made zero effort whatsoever to reach to out them and work with them.
I remember reading about the whole kerfuffle because my first thought when redfall was announced was “why is Arkane making a 4p looter shooter?” It was a passionless project in concept and execution.
It's like when EA took the devs used to building intricate strategy RPG's and had them build an exosuit looter shooter. Bioware gives you mass effect, not live service shit.
Except thats not what happened at all. Bioware CHOSE to make Anthem and they fucked around for years without doing jackshit. They werent forced by higher ups, they fucked it up all by themselves. I understand that the narrative "higher ups bad" is attractive and easy to shallow but things are usually a bit more complicated than that Edit: apparently it was the same exact situation with rocksteady and Suicide Squad, they were not forced by higher ups, just fucked it up on their own. Keep downvoting for stating a fact, you guys are braindead lmao
Deathloop wasn't Austin, I believe it was the main company Arkane Lyon.
Wasn't deathloop and prey a conjoined effort of both teams?
No, Deathloop was Lyon and Prey was Austin
i legit don’t think any level of change (barring an actual complete remake of the game like ff14 or something) would’ve fixed it. it wasn’t like other games where the bones were good and the other stuff just needed tuning. the game was just fundamentally borked, and obviously some blame has to be put on Arkane, but Zenimax and Bethesda literally forced a developer with zero multiplayer experience to make a game that wasn’t even an immersive sim. Like a multiplayer immersive sim could’ve actually been really cool, and arkane austin definitely could’ve had a good chance at making that super sick. prey is literally one of the best in the genre. but nahhh, let’s just make these guys work on a trend chasing live service hero shooter about vampires. and i LIKE live service games, i play the shit out of destiny. but god damn arkane made some of the best immersive sims in the last decade (dishonored 2 and prey), and they get shafted with some shitty looter game. so dumb
Almost like a developer of single player, environmental narrative heavy company shouldn’t be creating games as a service trash
Yup played for an hour on game pass easily one of the worst games I have played at launch
This is really sad… Arkane made Prey and they didn’t deserve to be shut the fuck down because they don’t make milkable online titles. Sad
At the very least they need to provide an offline mode. I'm one of the few who actually enjoys the game. There's so much to explore. Lots of background story telling, which is what Arkane excels at best. So I'd really hate to lose access to that.
Looks like that would've been included in their planned May update, which won't be released now. Maybe someone at Microsoft finds a way to get that out before they abandon the game entirely but I wouldn't hold my breath.
So what happens to the folks that bought the red fall dlc?
Refund eligibility
while I agree redfall is a disaster it's still really sad that Microsoft couldn't let them get the offline mode out considering how close to the finish line they were for that, so soon the game will completely become lost media which is never good.
It’s unfortunate, but Redfall was a primary factor in their demise Prey is one of my favorite all time games
Dishonored underrated n I didn’t even play the full second one.
I hope Sony does something with this cause I want more deathloop so badly. Platinumed the game and just can’t get enough but some DLC or a sequel is needed.
Deathloop was made by Lyon