Microsoft is shuttering four Bethesda studios, including Arkane Austin and Tango Gameworks, ending all development on Redfall

midian182

midian182

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What just happened? It seems that making popular and successful games is no guarantee that a company will be safe. Microsoft has just announced the closure of four Bethesda studios as it looks to prioritize "high-impact titles." Arkane Austin (Prey), Tango Gameworks (Hi-Fi Rush), Alpha Dog Games, and Roundhouse Games are all being shuttered.

Arkane Studios has put out some excellent games in the past, including Dishonored, Prey, and Deathloop. Prey was developed by Arkane Austin, the Texas-based arm of the French video game developer, as was the much-maligned Redfall. It's the Austin studio that Microsoft is closing, with development of Marvel's Blade being passed on to Arkane Lyon.

Closing Arkane Austin means development on Redfall has now ended. The vampire co-op title will not receive its previously promised updates or new character DLC. The game and its servers will remain online, and Microsoft will provide a "make-good" offer to players who bought the Hero Pass as part of the premium Bite Back Edition or upgrade.

Pete Hines, senior vice president of global marketing & communications at Bethesda, last year said that Redfall would do a Fallout 76 and eventually gain more universal appeal.

Also on the chopping block is Tango Gameworks, the company behind The Evil Within, Ghostwire: Tokyo, and Hi-Fi Rush.

Alpha Dog Games, maker of mobile game Mighty Doom, is being closed. Mighty Doom will be sunset on August 7 and players will no longer be able to make any purchases in the game.

Roundhouse Games (formerly Human Head Studios) is being absorbed by The Elder Scrolls Online developer ZeniMax Online Studios.

Matt Booty, head of Xbox Game Studios, said in an email to staff that the cuts were due to Microsoft's "reprioritization of titles and resources."

"Today I'm sharing changes we are making to our Bethesda and ZeniMax teams," Booty writes. "These changes are grounded in prioritising high-impact titles and further investing in Bethesda's portfolio of blockbuster games and beloved worlds which you have nurtured over many decades."

Barring the failure of Redfall, the studios have been behind some successful titles. Microsoft itself called Hi-Fi Rush a "break out hit" last year. It recently won the Animation category at the BAFTA awards, too. But it seems the companies fell short in Microsoft's eyes when it came to producing "high-impact" titles, which are where resources are being allocated.

In January, Microsoft announced that it was laying off 1,900 employees from its gaming division, the majority of which would come from Activision Blizzard, though some workers at the company's Xbox and ZeniMax divisions were also affected.

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Microsoft is shuttering four Bethesda studios, including Arkane Austin and Tango Gameworks, ending all development on Redfall

 
Way to go, Microsoft:
- you killed any and all hopes for Bethesda new games
- you killed any and all hopes for Blizzard new Starcraft games.
NOT paying any subscription
NOT paying any live services
NOT paying any "always online" games
 
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So let me break down what happened to these studios long term. Most started out as independent studios, the owner of that studio then sold it for a massive sum while usually receiving a seat on the board(in this case, microsoft). So the company sells itself and all its IP to a megacorporation and they all become employees of that corporation. Times eventually get bad so instead of the business staying afloat by trickling sales from older titles, the corporation takes the money from the trickling sales and lays everyone off who created then. We saw this in the dotcom crash, we saw this in 2008 and were seeing it now. Know what? It's gonna happen again in the future.

So the lesson here is don't sell your game studio to a megacorporation and expect job security.
 
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Dishonored was a decent game, I liked it. I wasn't all that impressed by Dishonored 2 or Death of the Outsider. Just more of the same and the stories for them were just okay.

Prey started off with potential, but after about 10 hours into it the game it was boring and I got tired of it, never finished it. I much prefer the original Prey game that came out in 2006.

Deathloop - heard it was pretty good, but never interested me.

Hi-Fi Rush - never even heard of it and after looking it up, it certainly is not a game for me. Reviews for it seem to be solid.

I can understand a couple of them getting closed or restructured/absorbed into other studios (though the latter doesn't appear to be the case here), but ones that had success it always sucks to see them getting closed, even if they made games I don't play or like.
 
Such a massive destruction of dev studios, even EA never killed so many of them simultaneously as far as I know.

The sad part is that Microsoft is likely making enough money on Azure and AI to not even care if their gaming division is mostly dead weight and just a husk designed to negate Sony of IPs while not really doing anything with em, that certainly will be the case with so many great IPs being nuked today so for the next 4-5 years all of them will be just MS sitting on them doing nothing.
 
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His two big mistakes were 1-not developing enough exclusives and 2 - always trying to beat PlayStation. If he made more exclusives over his decade reign and not tried to 'win' then classic Xbox would still be here in a profitable third place. Instead he tried a series of different projects to win and he ended up ultimately destroying Xbox by changing its relationship with its most loyal customers. What did he do?

* Phil spent a decade only release new iterations of Halo, Forza and Gears and not investing in creating new first party studios and IP. He mishandled Scalebound and shutdown Lionhead Studios.

* Phil tried Mixer, a streaming channel that could be used to promote Xbox dominance with free giveaways...

* Phil tried to create a streaming service that he regarded as too superior to consider PlayStation and Nintendo as competitors! But would instead compete with Netflix and Google...

* But his worst mistake was Xbox Game Pass - a multi billion dollar investment that could only work if completely dominated the worldwide gaming market - but it didn't. Instead it changed the culture of Xbox gamers so they resented spending on third party games as they were now trained to expect everything for free. Now all the games Microsoft had invested so much in were not only NOT making money from other platforms, as ever, but they were now NOT EVEN making money from Xbox customers.

If Phil Spencer had just concentrated on making new games and not non-stop gimmicks to beat PlayStation, I genuinely believe the Xbox would be an attractive platform with regular exclusives like Halo but with others too that would give it its distinct identity and maintain a profitable existence. Phil's been in charge for over a decade, the blame lays at his feet.
 
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I assume this is the studio that made Redfall. If that is correct they deserved to be closed.
Someone still needs to work on a game pass or DLCs people paid for though...
Although it would be cheaper and fairer to just refund all premium game copies.
 
Hifi Rush was good. Played it for two hours. Ghostwire:Tokyo on Xbox had the worst input lag in single player. Actually inexcusably poor, it was unplayable for me. Or the game itself did not outweigh the awful playing experience.

Still always sad when people’s jobs are affected. They should at least absorb these people into other studios
 
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