As a general point (not related to Redfall specifically), it surprises me how many people advocate for Microsoft to interfere with their studios. Usually, meddling with developers is seen as a negative, and we know that Microsoft’s hands off approach is DIRECTLY influenced by their mishandling of Lionhead. ZeniMax medding with Arkane is how we got in this situation.
I don’t think we should be encouraging Microsoft to go against creatives who work at their studios and just outright cancel projects. What if they had cancelled Hi-Fi Rush or Pentiment? I understand Redfall is a special case and probably warranted an internal reboot, but Phil already said that he regrets not getting involved earlier. They are aware of this and will likely do better going forward.
I just hope they don’t overcorrect and cancel a bunch of projects just because they are different to what the studio does (I don’t think they will, as Phil said he supports devs trying new things). Microsoft meddling too much would be catastrophic for talent retention.
This isnt bad news at all; it shuts down the narrative Sony fanboys and the media have been portraying about the whole Redfall ordeal. It’s 100% on Zenimax/Bethesda and has nothing to do with Microsoft, except if Microsoft cancelled it we would have a bigger PR disaster than Scalebound due to how beloved Arkane is.
Remember Scalebound? The game that looked terrible, was woefully mismanaged by Platinum, and nobody cared about? Then when MS cancelled it they got eviscerated by fanboys and the media and still get shat on 'til this day? Yeah. We remember.
Also, Jason confirms Zenimax wanted to sell since 2018 and this is why they forced GaaS on their studios.
2018!
Sony thought they could continue doing what they’ve done for decades and moneyhat 3rd party content away from Xbox, this time with a beloved Xbox assosiated publisher, and Microsoft finally punched them in the mouth and said not anymore.
This deserves it’s own topic, honestly, but I’m too tired to make one, lol.
70% of the staff leaving the studio is a terrible sign. I hope they really concept out what the new talent at Arkane is capable of before working on their next game. I have a feeling that Arkane Austin is going to be going through a lot of a rediscovery phase when most of the staff have been replaced by new hires.
They’re a new studio through and through, they are not the studio that made Prey, they are the studio that made Redfall now. It is up to Arkane to find out what their new studio is capable of creating, they can’t credit their past anymore when they are starting off fresh.
Shifting blame isn’t productive for anybody. Anywhere you work, whether it be construction or a tech company, a mistake this big reflects on the boss, and a good boss takes the blame, exactly like phil spencer did. Not many people would do what he did.
Not saying he took it just to look good, he took it because he knows it’s been more than two years now since the acquisition and ms is a bit to blame for being completely blind to arkane austin being on fire since redfall was in development. And that’s not a hyperbole, losing 70% of your staff because of a game is a very dire situation.
I think a lot of this is people looking for solutions after this failure. Nobody wants to see that again.
But i dont think it is that easy. Video game dev is not a factory with an assembly line. There is lots of uncertainty, turmoil and chaos involved. Just watch the Psychonauts 2 dev documentary (and that was for a sequel!). Is the chaos you are seeing 1 year from the deadline normal chaos or is it a red flag? And what do you do to fix it?
We don’t know when the staff left. Was it at the beginning? 10-20 percent every year? There was also the pandemic and wfh complications where job fluidity was higher than normal. We only see the end result now, which of course looks really bad.
We know Phil is doing reevaluation with them from what he said back in the interview, so basically a new age of the studio will have to start. Meanwhile, Lyon is working on something, so Austin have time.
It seems Lyon is fine when it comes to staff, no reports on that. Seems it’s the Prey team that got a lot of losses which is a shame, but good that Lyon is fine.
I hopw Arkane Lyon is working on either a new Dishonored or a new IP. I don’t really care for Deathloop and I got really sick of it after the first 10-15 hours, it was a bit too confusing, and the AI was terrible. It wasn’t a GOTY worthy title.
It’s always the Prey team that gets the short end of the stick and I hate it. I really hope their next project wows and they can finally have the success they deserve.
Deathloop is set in the Dishonored universe, so whatever their next game is (Dishonored 3, Deathloop 2, something else), I think it will be in that world and continue to advance the overall story.
Yeah, Prey is so fricking great, goddamn it. I genuinely think that these Arkane games would have been a much bigger success if they had been on Game Pass from day one, so many more people give it a chance then. Meh.
I saw some people on Twitter replying to Jason that Phil in the interview said Redfall was the game Arkane wanted to make. But Jason corrected that by saying it’s Arkane’s higher ups that wanted it.
I still don’t understand why publishers force GaaS on studios that don’t want it. I think when a team doesn’t put their all in a GaaS, then it will flop. I know if you get a hit then you can create a factory out of that game, but it seems it’s not worth it if they’re not fully into it
Luckily for Microsoft they’ve positioned themselves where they don’t have to force studios to make GaaS games.
I would not be surprised if they try to make up for this by letting them make a sequel to Prey (I don’t say Prey 2 because it brings the cancelled Prey 2 brigade out of the woodwork).
GaaS is a steer clear and stay away sign for me. Not first party yet but I’m not even sure if I’m going to pick up Diablo IV because it clearly shows GaaS signs. The fact that Blizzard doesn’t have microtransactions turned on during the review period is pitiful.
Were they leaving when Microsoft bought Bethesda? Or before?
Edit: So it seems it maybe a little of both from the article phrasing of at the end of its development. There’s no real time frame for but I guess May is the only time we have.