Earlier this week, Microsoft announced a number of their studios were being shuttered, including Arkane Austin (Prey, Redfall), Tango Gameworks (The Evil Within, Hi-Fi Rush), and Alpha Dog Games, while Roundhouse Studios will be absorbed into ZeniMax Online Studios to work on The Elder Scrolls Online. This follows nearly 1,900 layoffs earlier in the year, largely from Microsoft’s newly-acquired Activision Blizzard teams. Unfortunately, it seems this isn’t the end of the pain.
According to Bloomberg’s reliable Jason Schreier, folks across the Xbox organization have been told more cuts are on the way. It’s unclear at the moment which divisions will be affected, or if any more studio closures could be in the cards.
Related Story Arkane Austin Studio Director Gives Emotional Goodbye to Colleagues, Wonders about the ‘Sweet Spot’ Team Size
While it was already fairly clear, according to Schreier’s reporting the closing of Arkane Austin and Tango Gameworks came as a shock to employees, as both studios were actually in the process of pitching new games and staffing up for future development. Tango was said to be pitching a sequel to Hi-Fi Rush, while Arkane was pitching a new single-player immersive sim in the vein of the Dishonored games.
Per Schreier, at an internal town hall ZeniMax Media head Jill Braff (ZeniMax is the umbrella company for Bethesda) said the goal is to focus Bethesda on fewer bigger projects, as it’s “hard to support nine studios all across the world with a lean central team with an ever-growing plate of things to do.” Arkane Austin and Tango Gameworks may have simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time, as they had just shipped games and hadn’t started on the next thing as Microsoft looked to consolidate.
Interestingly, Schreier also brings up Xbox Game Pass, which has stagnated in recent years, with gaming subscription service spending only growing 1 percent over the past year. Schreier hints this may be the reason for the Xbox layoffs – when Game Pass was the focus, Microsoft needed a steady stream of exclusives to feed it. If Game Pass is no longer the focus, it perhaps makes more sense to focus on bigger AAA titles so they can go head-to-head with competitors like Sony. Needless to say, this potentially doesn’t bode well for developers like Double Fine, Compulsion Games, and Ninja Theory that were largely purchased to provide those smaller Game-Pass-friendly titles.
The times are a-changing for Xbox, let’s just hope not too many people lose their jobs as they reinvent themselves.
The website gametalkz.com is an aggregator of news from open sources. The source is indicated at the beginning and at the end of the announcement. You can send a complaint on the news if you find it unreliable.
Microsoft had announced in February that it would bring four of its exclusive Xbox titles to rival platforms from Sony and Nintendo. It seems the company is not stopping with its four first-party games coming to PlayStation and Nintendo Switch. A new report claims that the Xbox parent intends to make a multi-platform push for more of its games. Under the plan, internally codenamed “Latitude,” more upcoming first-party Xbox titles are said to be in development for the PS5.
WWE 2K24 has been on the market for a couple of months now and developer Visual Concepts is expanding the experience with the game’s first DLC pack. CM Punk made his surprise return to WWE this past November at Survivor Series, and in years past, fans would likely have had to wait over a year to see him in a WWE game, as the deadline for setting the roster for the next game would have passed. Thankfully, that’s no longer the case, as Visual Concepts got to work and managed to get him into the ECW Punk Pack, which also includes Bubba Ray and D-Von Dudley, Sandman, and Terry Funk.
A reliable Resident Evil leaker has reported that Resident Evil 9 will take place within a fictional rural town on an island, a setting that would be pretty unique for the series.
GameStop may begin purchasing graded Pokémon cards at a select number of retail locations soon, according to store associates. If true, the move would make the retailer one of the single largest buyers of graded collectibles with nearly 3,000 potential retail locations in the United States for consumers to sell their cards. Rumors first began circulating Thursday, via PokéBeach. Polygon has reached out to GameStop’s press team for comment.
Xbox fans were dealt some devastating news earlier this week, after the company announced it would be shutting down multiple developers, including Tango Gameworks and Arkane Austin. It was claimed by Xbox that this was done so it could funnel more funds into "high-impact" titles, likely referencing big games currently in development, such as The Elder Scrolls 6.
Tang Gameworks was in the process of pitching a Hi-Fi Rush sequel and wanted to hire additional staff before its sudden closure, according to a new Bloomberg report.
Resident Evil creator and Tango Gameworks founder Shinji Mikami has shared his thoughts on the announced closure of the renowned game studio. On May 7, Microsoft revealed that it was shutting down four Bethesda studios: Redfall developer Arkane Austin, mobile studio Alpha Dog Games, Roundhouse Studios, and Tango Gameworks.
Ever since last year, generative AI has been on everyone's lips as it promised to disrupt most industries. The highly tech-based games industry is, of course, no exception.
Arkane Lyon director Dinga Bikaba has taken to Twitter to condemn the closure of Arkane Austin, Tango Gameworks, Roundhouse Studios and Alpha Dog Studios by Microsoft. Calling these events “absolutely terrible,” he implored gaming company executives to “make us proud when times are tough.”
Former Blizzard boss Mike Ybarra has claimed that Xbox head Phil Spencer will be hurting “as much as anyone else” following the closure of four first-party studios.