Aaron Greenberg

Tango Gameworks will update Hi-Fi Rush one last time before Microsoft shuts the door on the studio. Microsoft announced earlier in May that it was closing three studios, including Hi-Fi Rush developer Tango Gameworks. Shortly after the news of the closures, Tango Gameworks confirmed the game will “remain available and playable everywhere” it's already accessible.

Last month, Microsoft announced that the Xbox Games Showcase would be returning on June 9, and that it would be followed immediately afterward by a “Redacted” Direct deep dive on an unannounced game. Many quickly guessed that the game in question would be this year’s Call of Duty instalment, and that’s now been officially confirmed.

Hi-Fi Rush is set for its final patch later today, May 15, amid the closure of its developer Tango Gameworks.

This week, Microsoft and Bethesda announced that they would be closing down multiple game development studios under their umbrella. These include Alpha Dog Games, maker of Mighty Doom, and Arkane Austin, developer of the disastrous Redfall among others. In the gaming industry, the conventional wisdom has long been held that bad games sink you and great games save you, which would lead many to drawing an unfortunate line between Redfall’s reception and Arkane Austin’s closure — but immediately stops supporting that conclusion when you get to Tango Gameworks.

Xbox Game Studios head Matt Booty has reportedly said Microsoft needs smaller games that will earn it «prestige and awards» a day after shutting down Tango Gameworks.

Steam users are leaving positive reviews for Hi-Fi Rush following Microsoft’s shock decision to close its developer, Tango Gameworks.

Ever since Microsoft started on their spending spree of acquisitions in 2018, gamers have feared the worst. Would Microsoft simply out-spend Sony to secure market dominance? Would PlayStation gamers be deprived of innumerable great games? Were they building Game Pass into a video gaming Death Star?

In one of the most double-think statements ever made outside of George Orwell’s 1984, Xbox Game Studios head Matt Booty has told employees that “We need smaller games that give us prestige and awards,” just one day after closing down the game studio that was responsible for the prestigious award-winning game, Hi-Fi Rush.

Microsoft has shuttered several Bethesda-owned game studios, including Hi-Fi Rush developer Tango Gameworks and Redfall maker Arkane Austin, in order to shift focus on to its “priority games”. The Xbox parent is also closing Alpha Dog Games, makers of the mobile game Mighty Doom, while Roundhouse Studios, which also contributed to Redfall development, will be absorbed by ZeniMax Online Studios. The development, initially reported by IGN, was confirmed by affected studios Tango Gameworks and Arkane in separate posts on X late Tuesday. The shutdowns come months after Microsoft announced layoffs at Xbox and Activision Blizzard earlier this year, which made 1,900 roles redundant.

2024 is looking like a packed year for Microsoft, and though the majority of the company’s first-party releases are likely planned for the back half of the year, one of the more prominent ones is not that far away. Senua’s Saga: Hellblade 2 is set to launch in under three weeks’ time, and ahead of its release, starting next week, Microsoft will be kicking its marketing campaign into gear.

Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer is visiting Kojima Productions today, as testified by the pictures shared by Kojima himself on Twitter. Xbox executives Sarah Bond (Corporate VP) and Aaron Greenberg (VP of Marketing) are also in attendance, and they brought Kojima a nifty Starfield-themed backpack. They later went with many Kojima Productions members to visit the Kanda Myojin sanctuary in Akihabara, Tokyo.

Lies of P is now available on Game Pass just a tiny bit earlier than originally planned.

Lies of P has been added to Game Pass a day earlier than expected.

One streamer and dev has found the perfect way to mark the days until the launch of Starfield: with an online countdown that deposits one digital sandwich into an ever-growing pile every five minutes until the game is out.

According the Microsoft's Xbox Chief Marketing Officer Jerret West, Microsoft still has untold stories that will unwrap in 2024 and 2025 aside from the already-announced upcoming first-party titles.

Microsoft’s sizeable first party portfolio has had its fair share of ups and downs of late, but there’s little doubt in anyone’s mind that Hi-Fi Rush has been one of its best and biggest victories. Recently, developer Tango Gameworks announced that the gorgeous rhythm action game had surpassed 3 million players since it launched earlier this year, and apparently, Microsoft is ecstatic with Tango as a group on the back of that success.

It’s a day of good news for Xbox, with Starfield having gone gold and Forza Motorsport shaping up well. On top of this, Tango Gameworks’ Hi-Fi Rush has achieved a new milestone, crossing three million players since launching last January for Xbox Series X/S and PC.