re: Microsoft Closing Multiple Studios

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Never played Prey. I guess I'll have to check it out. That game was created by Arkane Houston and then it seems a sequel got lost in development hell.

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Austin*, and there was never a sequel planned for Arkane's Prey. You're confusing it with the HumanHead Studios' Prey from 2006, whose sequel was in development hell for 4 years.

A lot of people were hoping for the sequel to Prey 2006 to see the light of day, so it felt like a rugpull when Prey 2017 (Arkane) was announced and had absolutely nothing to do with the original. Forcing the Prey name onto Arkane was a Zenimax decision and one of the first dominoes to fall with Raphael Colantonio (founder) leaving

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It's certainly reasonable to believe Zenimax dropped the ball with Redfall, but let's look at this realistically: Arcane Houston released Prey in 2017, and then nothing else until Redfall in 2023

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Arkane Austin didn't officially release anything from its inception in 2006 to the release of Prey 2017, but it still played a critical role as Lyon's sister studio. It had a very heavy hand in the developments of Dishonored 1 & 2. Redfall was still in the preproduction and early design phases when the Zenimax deal was announced, which is probably why some of the devs held out hope for a cancellation instead of quitting.

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They haven't been working on anything since he left. Not sure there's any way to spin that positively (the article I linked tried).

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I didn't even address that in my reply to you, I was just commenting on your suggestion that Mikami's departure was a death knell for the company when he hasn't really done anything from a game development standpoint in literally years. He's been talking about "directing one last game" since 2018. John Johanas, the director of Evil Within 2 and Hifi Rush, has been far more integral to the company as of late.




At the end of the day, whats heartbreaking to me is that Arkane's outlook, even for Lyon, has been pretty grim. Immersive sims require a ton of effort and creativity to be done properly, and they just don't sell very well. Arkane is one of the last few major studios that still makes them.

For those that aren't familiar with the "immersive sim" term - it describes games that create player immersion via the use of complex environments and tools that offer countless solutions for the player, none of which are the "right way"

In Prey you may be greeted by a locked door. You can find a key later in the game, you can use a nerf gun to bounce a dart off a window sill and hit a door release button on the other side, you can transform into a small object that fits through that open window, etc. Deus Ex is similar in that you can shoot your way through, talk your way through, hack your way through, or sneak through just about every situation

Tears of the Kingdom (didnt play) is probably the latest good example. So many different systems and abilities and shite that people would combine in various ways to come up with puzzle solutions that devs may not have even intended/tested, but worked nonetheless. That's what immersive sims are about. When you try something while thinking "no way this works," and then you're ecstatic when it actually does.

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I didn't even address that in my reply to you, I was just commenting on your suggestion that Mikami's departure was a death knell for the company when he hasn't really done anything from a game development standpoint in literally years.

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I said I wasn't sure how they were going to survive without him. I was hoping they would. They clearly didn't.

The best thing Tango had going for themselves from a Microsoft viewpoint is they were a Japanese developer. Microsoft wants more games from Japanese developers. They basically started out standing on second base and just had to make it home, so they decided not to work on anything for over a year. The best they can say is they "pitched a sequel" to Hi-Fi RUSH. Hopefully they just forgot to mention they were also pitching another game like Ghostwire or Evil Within.

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At the end of the day, whats heartbreaking to me is that Arkane's outlook, even for Lyon, has been pretty grim.

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Doesn't seem very grim to me. They're currently working on Blade and nothing indicates they're under any threat of being closed.

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Yeah, and I was telling you that that was an unfounded fear because he hasn't done any game development in earnest in years. The closure has jack shite to do with his departure

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I don't know if it does or doesn't. All I know is they apparently haven't worked on anything but a pitch for a Hi-Fi Rush sequel since he left, and now they're closed.

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The fact that MS put them to work on a fricking Marvel property tells you all you need to know about what they think of Arkane's ability to generate serious sales with their existing IPs and design competencies

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All reporting indicates that this stemmed from Bethesda and Disney's pre-existing relationship from the Indiana Jones game, which was lined up before MS bought Bethesda (remember all the gnashing of teeth when MS made it XBox exclusive?). Marvel approached Bethesda with the opportunity to make a Blade game, Arkane Lyon pitched an idea and got the contract. No one forced them to do this.

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and people constantly forget that NV was essentially an expansion, Bethesda did the ground work, Obsidian didn't have to figure out things like shooting mechanics and could put more effort into story and add factions

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Sounds like Howard could really benefit from switching engines and having teams focus on interesting shite again.

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Deathloop was not good

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It was a great idea. It just falls apart in the mid to late game

This doesn't bother me at all. The games industry, much like Hollywood, needs a serious reset on controlling costs and aligning with the consumer. When single devs or tiny studios can repeatedly push out beloved games while major studios take years to pump out pure trash, it's bound to contract.

Rockstar seems like one of the few studios keeping their shite together lately.

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and people constantly forget that NV was essentially an expansion, Bethesda did the ground work, Obsidian didn't have to figure out things like shooting mechanics and could put more effort into story and add factions

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I don’t know that people forget it as much as that’s… kinda the entire point.

People who are fans of Fallout and Elder Scrolls aren’t looking for each new game to reinvent the fricking wheel. They aren’t frothing over the next game because they want to see where Todd takes the combat system. They are frothing over the next game because they want to experience more of the story, and more of the world, of a game series they are invested in. New Vegas is adored, for all its flaws, because it was a great Fallout game, from the lore, to the dialogue, to the side quests. Fallout 4 gets a lot of shite, in spite of things like an improved combat system, because the general opinion is that it just didn’t capture the essence of the series.

Consistently iterating off of a great IP isn’t a bad thing. It obviously needs to advance with technology over time, but for the most part, just give the people what they want, and what they want is deeper dives into the worlds they love, not revamped combat systems.