Microsoft shuts down Arkane Austin and Tango Gameworks
The studio closures come as part of major cuts at Bethesda Softworks.
Microsoft has informed employees of Redfall developer Arkane Austin and Hi-Fi Rush developer Tango Gameworks that both studios are being closed. The decision comes as part of major cuts at publisher Bethesda.
Head of Xbox Game Studios Matt Booty announced the studio closures in an internal email obtained by IGN.
Booty goes on to explain that some Arkane Austin developers will join other teams (the rest will be laid off). The publisher will also cease all development on Redfall. As for Tango Gameworks, there is no mention of developers being brought over to other teams. The closures will also affect Alpha Dog Games, the studio behind Mighty Doom, the mobile adaptation of id Software’s iconic first-person shooter. The game will be sunsetted on August 7, 2024. Lastly, the Roundhouse Games team will be integrated into Zenimax Online Studios.
This comes just months after Microsoft confirmed it would be laying off roughly 1,900 people across its gaming division. We’ll be sure to update this article if and when more information becomes available.
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replyDonovan Erskine posted a new article, Microsoft shuts down Arkane Austin and Tango Gameworks
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Xbox is shutting down Arkane Austin, Tango Gameworks, and two other studios. Story hitting Bloomberg shortly
https://twitter.com/jasonschreier/status/1787835350745842153-
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I cry every time http://www.shacknews.com/chatty?id=42409462
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Austin's tech workforce grew faster than any other metro area between 2019 and 2023, while New York City won the biggest share of relocating tech workers and the San Francisco Bay Area continued to dominate AI talent, per new data from VC firm SignalFire.
https://www.axios.com/2024/04/18/austin-nyc-tech-job-boom-towns
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The Evil Within was a great game, & the sequel was solid, too. This sucks.
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But Microsoft was supposed to be the good guys now...
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JFC. I know Redfall wasn't the best release in the world but Arkane Austin has done incredible work, and Tango Gameworks has put out several amazing games (Hi-Fi Rush was incredible!)
I don't know if this wouldn't have happened had MS not acquired Bethesda, but my instinct is to say fuck MS very much.-
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Redfall was fucked long before Microsoft entered the picture. That one is entirely on Bethesda and Zenimax.
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If Sony can Sony, you bet Microsoft can Sony.
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Not entirely true- and, it had nothing at all to do with Microsoft.
There was a push away from single player linear one-shot games. How each studio handled that was different.-
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Oh I'm familiar. I was there!
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Even if Elder Scrolls 6 is as shit as Starfield it would take another failure beyond that for the possibility to even float into the picture.
No. It would take 3+ fuckups in a row, like the ones 343 has been pulling with Halo, and even then Microsoft would probably just replace the management and try one more time.
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Remember all those threads with people over-the-moon hyped for Microsoft to purchase studios and shower them with riches and goodwill, and foster in a new utopian era of high-budget, high quality games, under MS's loving wings?
Yeah... -
Wow that sucks, Arkane was done fucking dirty.
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Fuck. Salute to those that just lost their jobs. The state of this industry is disgusting.
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I really enjoyed Deathloop for what it was.
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I didn't like Deathloop (relative to the rest of their games), it really felt like immersive-sim lite. There were hardly any NPCs to talk to or quests to do or interesting things to find or any interesting enemies to fight. It was just about the loop, which was pretty neat, but everything else felt hollow and underbaked.
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Prey was Austin.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arkane_Studios
Smith moved to France to lead the Lyon studio in the sequel Dishonored 2 which was released in November 2016,[16] while Colantonio stayed at the Austin studio to lead the development of Prey, a spiritual sequel of both System Shock and Arx Fatalis, that was released in 2017. Prey shared its name only with the intellectual property that ZeniMax had acquired from Human Head Studios and their 2005 Prey and cancelled Prey 2 games.-
Also:
In May 2023, Arkane Austin released the co-op first-person shooter title Redfall.[27] Approximately 70% of the Austin team who had worked on Prey would be gone by the time Redfall's development was complete.[28]
Sounds like the team that made Prey is long gone.-
And sounds like Redfall did that. What a stinker of a game no one asked for. I feel bad for all that had to work on it instead of what they were excellent at.
Prey was so good!
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The common dominator between the best Arkane games seems to have been Colantonio. Who is apparently making a new first person game and his studio has an office in Austin. Might be a good landing place for Arkane people, although I heard many of them left during the development of Redfall.
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It was really good. Loved the gameplay, and the way you could approach any problem. Cared less for the last 1/4, but really loved the setting. Need to replay it.
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I thought Evil within games did ok? I really liked them, sad we won’t see a third
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feck.
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Honestly Arkane Austin I get. The team that made Prey is long gone and Redfall was a flop. Tango though!? Hi-Fi Rush was a great game! That studio had cool ideas. They probably never were profitable though :/
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Tango also lost Shinji Mikami last year as well who was their big name. Although it is a shame since Hi-Fi Rush was their best game and I was looking forward to the next game they were going to make.
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Mikami already has a new studio project in the works and the goal is for smaller games, not horror for now too.
https://www.gematsu.com/2024/03/shinji-mikami-establishes-new-studio-kamuy
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Good thing for devs MS owns most of the AAA studios now, so that won’t be awkward…. People ready to believe mergers are bad yet? Or do we need a few more thousands of jobs lost still to prove it out further.
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I am starting to think Microsoft has given up on gamepass becoming the next big thing. Something fundamentally changed this year when they announced they would be making their games multiplatform. That was a 180 shift in strategy. I wonder if Xbox is even going to be around past one more generation, and if it is, will it exist only as some sort of handheld? The console market doesnt look like a "growth industry" anymore and that tends to mean one thing: divestiture.
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If anything, hopefully other devs\pubs take this shit to heart and stop releasing broken ass shitty games "to be fixed later". I understand patches will always be a thing but completely unplayable undercooked games being released is fucking unforgivable and unacceptable. Literally ripping people off and I don't feel bad for them getting shut down. And ANYONE who excuses this kind of behavior is part of the fucking problem.
I'm wafting for the inevitable "RockSteady shut down" news.
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Literally no dev wants to release an unfinished game. Developers have almost no input at all on release dates when they are controlled/owned by these mega publishers. You are blaming the wrong people.
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It’s okay, not everyone is capable of empathy. Maybe in your case you should read reviews of games before buying them, but I’m guessing being informed isn’t a priority for you.
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I haven't bought a game on release or pre ordered in almost 15 years.
I can see the chef is putting shit on my plate but should I take the chance and pay for my meal in the case it might be good food? Nahhhh I don't think.l so. But maybe I should blame uppermanagment for that poop platter and give the chef a pass.-
Nobody was buying those games anyways- they were going straight to Gamepass and the quality expectations were not high. It was always a matter of having a list of games that made subscribing sound worthwhile. Playing them for more than a couple hours wasn’t the goal, in terms of engagement. :/
At least rushing to be a part of the Gamepass model as a fad smaller studios were chasing looks to be evolving away from “just get something on the service” to “let’s make sure we have players outside the service”. That alone should help, imo.
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I care, because most developers have little power (if any) when it comes to delaying a game. Publishers need to care. If they don’t we will continue to get sub par launches, most of the time at no fault of the dev.
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Devs are victims of publishers as much as consumers are, and until there's some sort of unionization or protections, it'll continue to happen.
I'll never blame a dev for an unfinished game because they aren't making those decisions.
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Wonder how that Perfect Dark developer is doing. They haven't said anything since that trailer years ago.
Are they going to be canned without releasing anything -
Not even surprised by this. When Shinki Mikami left, what did anyone think was going on? Same for many at Arkane. They were just there to finish up whatever projects were already in the works and then it would be over.
I’m feeling pretty positive this will happen with Ninja Theory too, now that their leads have been confirmed yo have left. -
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Perhaps he’ll move over to Mikami’s studio. Mikami doesn’t appear to have plans to direct again. What sucks is he probably has a noncompete. I hope they didn’t get him staying on at Tango with the illusion of having him on a new project or to take over the studio leadership, just to screw him out of running out when Mikami left. :(
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I warned people from day one to remember Microsoft’s history of burning first party studios not on HALO or Gears. They never have been in the business with a strong commitment to shaping talent and building IPs.
It doesn’t matter. The other platform holders never forgot that there needs to be some hands on control from their end on their studios and tech. But those companies still are trying to sell hardware, so what did anyone expect?
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I bet those people are sleeping like babies.
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They all made a ton of money when they sold Bethesda to Microsoft so I am sure they are.
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It's probably on the chopping block. Now that they have Activision and Blizzard, they can just pump out sequels to major franchises and count on that revenue and axe anything else that doesn't increase shareholder value.
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The Kinect actually sold very well. I think the root of their problems are way more foundational and rooted in Microsoft itself.
Almost every Xbox project seems to go through development hell and the way the division has treated studios makes it really clear why. A studio's talent is something that's built over time but Microsoft treats it as something disposable. The executives making these choices do not understand producing entertainment.-
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I really think that's missing the forest for the trees. Their biggest problem has always been the way they've treated studios and software development. You don't release a lot of good product when you cultivate a precarious environment for studios while first party studios are 70% comprised of devs on 18 month contracts.
You can overcome bad accessory strategies in the short term but in the long term their problems have been the same for just about the entire time the division has existed.-
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It feels that way, but I think that turn would have happened with or without it because Xbox has always been run by people who don't understand entertainment. Kinect is a good signpost, even a good short term symptom, but I don't think it accounts for the deeper problems the division has.
Btw that turn also coincided with the PS3 bouncing back and eventually outselling the 360.
Speaking of which, someone just shared this with me and it sums up the Sony/MS rivalry way better than I could lol: https://twitter.com/zoigoms/status/1787866484422906335-
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It was better but even deep in the 360 heyday they were still majorly fucking up acquisitions like Aces, Ensemble, FASA, etc.
I'm not going to shit on this time entirely, Xbox Arcade was a terrific time for the platform. Whoever led that initiative was clearly too smart to last there
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In the history of the Xbox, the Kinect could have been a speedbump like the Wii U was. It is merely symptomatic and an easy signpost, not pivotal.
The problem is that there is a real rot in the management of their studios that isn't temporary, it is generational and institutional. Reliance on contractors who can't work on a project for longer than 18 months only makes it worse and I don't see how it can be improved even after their pivot away from subscriptions and back towards publishing. If there is anyone who can mismanage CoD into its grave it is Xbox leadership.
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360 era was when I was working in Xbox TRG/standards and it was extremely obvious that Xbox and Live branding were the number one things that were being cultivated. Going to an all digital service was the clear goal even then, 20 years ago. Developing the talent and nurturing IP was not it and some studios were destroyed or pushed to the brink , including FromSoftware, because of their fickle support, especially for online functionality.
Meanwhile, Sony was very hands on with content standards even for 3rd party multiplatform games, not just with their own platform branding and as we have seen, Sony has been fine sharing Decima development between studios and working with studios when developing the PS hardware (with Epic/Unreal Engine too, most likely). Whether people like the exclusives model, it certainly has been Sony and Nintendo culture to know the worth of their games and act like media companies, not just tech companies.
I got argued with a lot around here by people who hadn’t seen what I’d seen on the inside, especially when I was critical of the Gamepass model as I suspected it would play out in MS’s hands. I never thought it was good for the creative side of the industry and I can’t wait for new studios to stabilize. This gen is practically a write off at this point. I don’t think we will see industry solidity again until next gen.-
To your last point, I posted this elsewhere but I really do think that the Switch 2 is where it happens: https://www.shacknews.com/chatty?id=42410213#item_42410213
Assuming a runaway success like the Switch, a relatively modest power target (say Series S level) that can still run pretty much anything these days (minus whatever Sony flagship finally releases in 2027 or 2028) makes a much more attainable and reasonable lead target platform for developers.
I think median visual targets stay more or less stable given that the biggest AAA releases have been meager and economically devastating at the same time.-
I totally agree. I also think eventually UE5 is going to reduce dev time peoplehours, but that hasn’t ramped up yet.
It’s the next Nintendo hardware that I think is shifting MS’s focus away from Gamepass first party dev too, for sure. Let 3rd party fill that need, while developing for Nintendo primary platform.-
I hope UE5 or some other middleware helps with this. According to multiple reliable sources the Matrix UE5 demo was shown running on Switch 2 dev kits last summer, and apparently it looked comparable to it running on PS5. I assume the differences with upscaling artifacts and such would be clearer side-by-side, but in a vacuum they said it looked about the same.
If UE5 becomes another baseline for software development then that's one more ball in the Switch 2's court.
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The embracer approach
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Yeah, their leadership hasn’t really helped any game aside from maybe Psychonauts 2 I can fun of
Seems studios are languishing with a lack of direction and then get shut down.
No good major IP game came out this generation for them. That’s embarrassing and speaks to their inability to lead what they acquire-
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It won’t be a huge seller, but I would like it to be a great game!!! And to be fair, original Hellblade was in fact a big seller on PS4. It was the top seller for the month it was released. I always thought it was a bit of a jab when Microsoft wound up being the one to buy the studio, after its long history with Sony, including how it got its start with Heavenly Sword, a PS3 exclusive (and launch window title too, iirc).
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•*I can think of
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Its impossible to say whether buying video games results in more money for developers!
The service model for gaming did for MS what it did for TV and movies, which is that it was a shitshow. Throwing titles on a service that plateaued three years ago means that there is no way to see real revenue off of them and there's only so much shell game bullshit that a board will countenance. -
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I can't say I have any insider knowledge about Microsoft, but I'd imagine hours played is a critical GamePass metric since that's going to drive subscriptions. Given how many games people buy but never play, that's probably not *exactly* the metric developers want to see, but it's probably better for gamers.
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Putting usage metrics in a black box and saying "trust us" to investors was an engine for investor growth back when money was free.
Now, especially after spending ~$100BN on M&A, not so much. Driving subscriptions is also a moot point, Game Pass flatlined years ago. Engagement is mostly arbitrary from the POV of the studio, so again, there are no actionable goals or metrics for success.
"Is Sarah Bond in a good mood today" might as well be just viable. It is idiotic and it puts a morale-crushing element that only makes things worse.-
I said a couple weeks ago that there is a legitimate case for Phil Spencer being the worst executive of a major in gaming history and I stick with it: https://www.shacknews.com/chatty?id=42361398#item_42361398
People have done dumber things but the scale at which MS blunders is staggering
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Oof.
Acquire everything. Build nothing.
It is getting hard for me to see it any other way. I got a few nuggets like Pentiment from Obsidian but Microsoft have spent almost $100 billion. They have almost nothing to show for it save some high profile failures. No Starcraft 3 announcement. They didnt hand off Fallout 5 to Obsidian or inXile. No shakeup at Call of Duty. No innovative usage of Azure with Xbox.
Nothing seems to be happening over there. Nothing.-
This and the QT of Matt Booty's statement points to what's next: https://twitter.com/ZhugeEX/status/1787871172765299151
For years it was all about Game Pass and services, now the pivot is to publishing and IP, which makes sense given that IP was a lot of the value of the acquisitions.
Btw, "making these tough decisions to create capacity" is hilarious corpo doublespeak given that this is a three trillion dollar company making budget cuts that we're talking about.
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Don’t worry folks! One staggeringly overpaid exec thinks another staggeringly overpaid exec will be sad about this and is definitely a good person after all!
https://www.eurogamer.net/former-blizzard-boss-mike-ybarra-defends-xboxs-phil-spencer-following-arkane-austin-tango-gameworks-closures -
Nintendo's profit by fiscal year chart from the last 42 years: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GM9rxg2XcAA-R3E?format=png&name=large
This is hammered on so much but it bears repeating.
See those little red bars from a decade ago, when people (idiots) were saying that Nintendo should just go into publishing? Instead executives slashed their pay so they could retain talent. The talent they held onto generated the content that created those massive green bars on the right side, where their profit from 2017-2023 exceeded 1981-2016 combined.
They're currently making another development building and have been growing headcount and wages for the last five years. They're in growth mode, reaping the long view, while the rest of the industry is on fire.-
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Also being content with reasonable budgets and reasonable returns instead of all-or-nothing: https://twitter.com/JonComms/status/1787968808533020875
HAL Labs just chugging along releasing a 1-2 million seller every couple years for 30 years, smaller budgets but reliable returns, no big deal.
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CEO of Moon Studios chimes in: https://twitter.com/thomasmahler/status/1787840291564564805
"To everyone whose been pestering me for years about why we didn't allow Moon Studios to get acquired by a big publisher...
That's why.
I've lived through the 90s and saw what happened when smaller studios got acquired by EA.
Never again"
Back when Ori came out it seemed natural that Moon Studios would allow themselves to be acquired by Microsoft after being published by them was so successful. They clearly made the right choice.-
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Oh wow well that would be scummy to turn around "nobody would buy this toxic asset" into "we stayed independent because we knew this would happen".
I didn't know about this but here's the top return: https://venturebeat.com/pc-gaming/despite-its-beautiful-ori-games-moon-studio-is-called-an-oppressive-place-to-work/
Sounds like the standard bro culture that went out of hand, where the founders edgy banter went way out of hand to people who wanted no part of it.
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Activision doesn't pay for itself!
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