The surprising closure of Arkane Austin is also bad for fans of the successful Dishonored game series, as it apparently prevents a third part of the franchise.
It was THE excitement of this gaming week: Microsoft is turning the red pencil again and closing three Bethesda studios, including Arkane Austin and Tango Gameworks. These two studios in particular apparently already had plans for prominent sequels in the drawer.
According to a report by Bloomberg After the flop with Redfall, Arkane Austin wanted to return to its successful roots of successful, immersive single-player titles – such as a new part of the Dishonored series.
With Dishonored they delivered an extremely successful title in 2012, which could best be described as a spiritual successor to Thief or Deus Ex. The title was so successful that further adaptations followed later with Dishonored 2 and Dishonored: Death of the Outsider. A pitch for Dishonored 3 has now been prepared or made, but the studio’s surprising closure prevented the game from actually being developed.
The situation is said to have looked similar at Tango Gameworks. The pitching process for a sequel to the highly praised rhythm-action game Hi-Fi Rush was started there, which will probably no longer exist.
As for Arkane Austin, Microsoft, in the person of Matt Booty, Head of Xbox Game Studios, is said to have emphasized that the failure of Redfall did not play a major role in the decision to close the studio.
Bethesda is bringing improvements to the Xbox version of Dishonored 2 and Dishonored: Death of the Outsider on the Xbox One X.
