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Tucked into tonight's fresh report on the inner turmoil happening at Xbox right now, Bloomberg has dropped a tidbit of information on what Arkane Austin might have done next - had the studio not been shuttered by Microsoft.
According to the report, Arkane's Austin team was "looking to return to its roots" by "pitching a new single-player 'immersive sim' game" to Microsoft. Before the studio's recent release of Redfall, it was known for its work on 2017's Prey and the Dishonored franchise.
Speaking of Dishonored, this report does hint that a sequel to Dishonored 2 could have been this 'new immersive sim game', but Bloomberg's sources don't outright state that 'Dishonored 3' was definitely mentioned internally. Still, given the franchise is well-known to gamers, it could have absolutely been an option for Xbox and Arkane, had a new immersive sim had gotten the greenlight.
"Before its closure, Arkane had been looking to return to its roots by pitching a new single-player “immersive sim” game, such as a new entry in the Dishonored series, according to the people familiar."
While such a project will no longer go ahead of course, it's also interesting that apparently, Redfall itself wasn't the reason behind Arkane Austin's closure. We don't know the full reasons right now, but Bloomberg sources claim that the shutdown "was not connected to the performance of its new multiplayer game, Redfall".
We'll never know exactly what the Austin-based developer could have produced under Microsoft post-Redfall, but it's a shame that we didn't see a new immersive sim from the team over there. As ever, this is reported information and should be treated as such without hearing anything official from Xbox, Bethesda or Arkane.
Would you have chosen Dishonored 3, or a brand-new IP? Tell us your hypothetical Arkane pick down below.
[source bloomberg.com]
Comments 9
i hope the talented folks fired from ms go to playstation, thats what im switching to. 100%
Immersive sims are my favorite kind of video game. Earlier this year, Deus Ex was canceled, and now this too... just sucks.
@rustyduck PlayStation are no better. They've fired up to 20% of there workforce over the last year, closed studio's, killed beloved franchises. The whole PSN scandal on Helldivers 2 over the weekend as well. To be fair it looks like Microsoft is trying to win who is the scumiest out of the two. There winning.
If you said Nintendo then I'd agree. As they are bucking the trend.
News flash - gaming is a business.
@cragis0001 xbox is a sinking ship. i will try to wait till next gen to switch. main concern is 3rd party support.
immersive sims do not sell i love them but Deus ex, Prey, Dishonoured 2 were commercial failures
I actually own Dishonored and Dishonored 2. 1 is on epic games I got for free. And 1 on gog, I also got for free. I never played them, but I guess I'll give it a go and see how it is.
@rustyduck thats my main issue with Xbox at the moment. Will all this negativity, in fighting, 3rd party push to PlayStation/Nintendo, Nadella & the board taking over, closure of Tango Gameworks kill 3rd party faith in supporting Xbox after this gen ends. I was hoping they'd push to improve it more. But oh well only time will tell.
I have to question the validity of this. Dishonored was Arkane Lyon, not Austin
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