One of the worst years for cancellations, cuts, and closures in the history of the video game industry has just claimed its next victims, including Arkane Austin and Tango Gameworks. Developers and fans alike are in disbelief. “Great teams are sunsetting before our eyes again, and it’s a fucking gut stab,” wrote Dinga Bakaba, director at Arkane Austin sister-studio, Arkane Lyon.
Set up in 2006, Arkane Austin helped develop the acclaimed 2012 whale-oil-punk immersive sim Dishonored, before leading development on 2017’s haunting sci-fi shooter Prey. Tango Gameworks, meanwhile, was founded in 2010 and is best known for making the Evil Within series of survival horror games, before bestowing a collective breath of fresh air on the video game industry last year with the colorful rhythm hack and slash platformer Hi-Fi Rush. Microsoft shut down both studios today, as well as other Bethesda subsidiaries Roundhouse Games and Alpha Dog Games, citing a need to focus on “high-impact” “priority games.”
Tango closed. Sad.
— 三上 真司 (@shinji_mikami) May 7, 2024
For now, great teams are sunsetting before our eyes again, and it's a fucking gut stab. Lyon is safe, but please be tactful and discerning about all this, and respect affected folks' voice and leave it room to be heard, it's their story to tell, their feelings to express.
— Dinga Bakaba 451 (@DBakaba) May 7, 2024
“This is absolutely terrible,” tweeted Bakaba, co-creative director at the remaining Arkane studio, in the wake of the news. “Permission to be human: to any executive reading this, friendly reminder that video games are an entertainment/cultural industry, and your business as a corporation is to take care of your artists/entertainers and help them create value for you.”
The Deathloop co-director at the Microsoft-owned studio continued:
Don’t throw us into gold fever gambits, don’t use us as strawmen for miscalculations/blind spots, don’t make our work environments darwinist jungles. You say we make you proud when we make a good game. Make us proud when times are tough. We know you can, we seen it before.
For now, great teams are sunsetting before our eyes again, and it’s a fucking gut stab. Lyon is safe, but please be tactful and discerning about all this, and respect affected folks’ voice and leave it room to be heard, it’s their story to tell, their feelings to express.
Inside baseball, but if I read ‘immersive sim curse’ from the community, especially from a fellow dev, I swear to God… Please, let’s talk about the *real* challenges instead of rehashing irrational anxieties of the past. Even more inside baseball, but with a very, very wide range, as a wise and sorely missed man said: “Please Stop.”
I don't understand the closure of @TangoGameworks, I mean… Why close instead of divest? Surely the team would easily have been able to find a new home. 🤷♂️
— Pilestedt (@Pilestedt) May 7, 2024
https://twitter.com/embed/status/1787888901341733224
I understand why, but I find it unsettling that the social posts announcing the closure of Arkane and Tango have the exact same design. pic.twitter.com/gc3c1qOAPF
— Kit Ellis (@kitosan) May 7, 2024
So unbelievably tired of watching people lose their creative lives.
— David Goldfarb (@locust9) May 7, 2024
The $375,000,000 Microsoft payout to known dog scum Bobby Kotick, could pay for the estimated salaries of both Arkane Austin and Tango Gameworks employees combined for the next 17 and a half years
— Ethan Taylor 🧌 (@ethataylo) May 7, 2024
I started at ZeniMax under Bethesda when I was just 20 years old. I celebrated my 31st birthday this year – ZeniMax and Arkane are all I've known my entire career in games. Devestated doesn't even begin to describe how I feel.
I am available for: UI Art, 2D Art, Env Art <3
— Sadie Boyd (@Wonder_Phoenix) May 7, 2024
Arkane gone? Fuck that. They made at least a couple of the best games of the past 3 decades. Games are amazing, but game industry is a fucking dumpster fire. The shitbirds who pissed in the well should be held accountable – not the brilliant creatives who made the masterworks.
— Clint Hocking (@ClickNothing) May 8, 2024
The world is a far far less interesting place without Arkane Austin and Tango in it.
I'm heartbroken for the devs whose lives have been thrown into chaos.
And selfishly, I'm sad for us – how many wonderful, crazy, beautiful games will we miss out on?
All so line go up…
— Ben Arfmann (@BenArfmann) May 8, 2024
Harvey Smith, co-director on Redfall at Arkane Austin, called today’s new “terrible,” adding that the team there had been through a lot together. Bloomberg previously reported that the vampire shooter’s troubled development grew out of a push by top Bethesda leadership to make a live-service game, a decision that ultimately led to sky-high attrition and multiple delays. “Your talent will lift you up, and I will do anything I can to help,” tweeted Smith. John Johanas, game director at Tango Gameworks, was also at a loss. “So this is how it ends…” he wrote. “Unfortunately I don’t quite have the words…But at least thank you to everyone who supported us.”
Back when Microsoft acquired Bethesda in 2021, its burgeoning Game Pass model seemed like a potentially great fit for Arkane Studios, whose creatively ambitious projects didn’t always seem to find the audiences they deserved. If Bethesda would never greenlight a Prey 2, maybe a deep-pocketed tech giant would see it as as a worthwhile addition to its Netflix-like subscription gaming library. If nothing else, the newly acquired teams would have no shortage of other holes to fill in Xbox’s struggling first-party lineup.
It hurts dude… it hurts.
— Rich Lambert (@SlashLurk) May 7, 2024
Adam Boyes, co-CEO at Iron Galaxy Studios, juxtaposed today’s carnage with Microsoft’s bottom line in a tweet screencapping the company’s recently announced quarterly profits of roughly $20 billion. “It hurts dude… it hurts,” wrote back Rich Lambert, head of ZeniMax Online Studios. “Angry. Frustrated. Shocked. Furious. Speechless. Dumbfounded. Perplexed,” wrote Alistair Hatch, another long-time veteran of Bethesda. “I have so much love for the studios affected. The people that made those teams were incredible, hard working, dedicated, and talented.”
People from other Microsoft-owned studios and outside the company have also been horrified by the news. “We took a lot of inspiration from both Evil Within and Evil Within 2 when developing Alan Wake 2,” tweetedRemedy Entertainment game director Kyle Rowley. “They are both excellent horror games and I’m very sad we will not get to see a continuation of the franchise from Tango Gameworks. “Why do I still do this?” tweeted Obsidian Entertainment communications director Mikey Dowling.
“Arkane did solid work and had a highly talented and motivated staff,” Mike Wikan, the former Retro Studios developer who led design on Metroid Prime, wrote on LinkedIn. “Companies need to understand that burning your Creative Production Studios to the ground is NOT the path to profitability.”
Update 5/7/2024, 12:58 p.m. ET: Added more reactions from developers.
Update 5/8/2024, 9:19 a.m. ET: Added more reactions from developers.
