Affected devs:
- Arkane Austin (closed)
- Tango Gameworks (closed)
- Alpha Dog Studios (closed)
- Roundhouse Games (absorbed into ZeniMax Online Studios)
These changes are grounded in prioritizing high-impact titles and further investing in Bethesda’s portfolio of blockbuster games and beloved worlds which you have nurtured over many decades.
Hi-Fi rush comes out of nowhere to massive critical acclaim just to be shut down anyway because Starfield sucked ass. Why people ever do business with these shitass publishers I’ll never understand
Remember that the people actually doing the work don’t decide who to make deals with.
You close Tango the developers behind your only recent good game, but keep 343 open. Ok Phil.
Pentiment and Psychonauts were great too so RIP to those studios 🫠
Most of the upper eschalon of 343 have left or were kicked out over the last year, including some of the worst offenders who drove the creation of the crap we’ve had recently such as Kiki Wolf kill.
It seems like they’re internally rebuilding 343 because they know how much of a powerhouse that IP can be if done right. I’m not optimistic about the next Halo, but cautiously hopeful now at least.
Don’t get my hopes up.
If halo infinite had been a well balanced Battle Royale game… I’d probably have thrown away everything I love due to overplaying a damn game.
I’m just so sick of multiplayer shooters. The repetition didn’t seem so bad when I was young, but now it just numbs my brain.
But BR is the perfect combo of “my squad vs the world” that you get in a PVE coop, but also the rush of beating real life opponents that makes you keep coming back.
Warzone is all my friends play now, but it’s gotten so stale that no one really pushes to squad up too frequently.
Sorry for the tangent rant.
Halo infinite multiplayer is free. The forge community has created a battle royale mode I’ve heard. Maybe give it a shot? I don’t know anything other than it exists.
I personally can’t stand battle royale games, so sorry, but I hope the next isn’t. It’s just not what Halo is. If they released a mode, or a side game as a Battle Royale I’m all for it, but not a full main game.
I feel the burnout though. My normal gaming friends and I are in a mode of trying new games right now and don’t play together as much.
Yeah, to each their own!
I feel like I’m taking crazy pills. Am I the only one that felt Hi-fi Rush was a disappointment? I played plenty of rhythm games and Hi-fi Rush just felt off throughout, landing beats didn’t feel satisfying and it felt off sync at timee. The story was well I can see people liking it but it felt too Disney-ish and cringe for me. I couldn’t get past playing it after the 2nd level.
It’s an interesting concept but I can’t call it a good game.
Arkane- I mean, yeah Redfall was a clunker but Dishonored, Deathloop, and Prey all did pretty well I thought… though I suppose the two Wolfenstein games they did were kinda trash so there is a bit of falloff between the “glory days” and now.
Tango- Hi-Fi Rush was a bop, and Ghostwire did well enough I thought. Not seeing a good reason here.
Alpha Dog - Mighty Doom? Okay thats a fair closure.
–
prioritizing high-impact titles and further investing in Bethesda’s portfolio of blockbuster games
Chasing blockbusters is gonna fuck them up but I suppose more room in the lower weight classes isn’t bad for gamers since it lets indies and others who aren’t the big boys shine, and lord knows thats been wild over the past year’ish.
Arcane austin was already killed by the development of redfall. Most of the talent responsible for making dishonered and prey the games they were left during development of redfall. If arcane austin went back to making immersive sims instead of closing, it would be a new team making it, with little help from the pedegree implied by arcane’s legacy.
Keep in mind however that arcane was two studios, the main studio in lyon france, and the other in austin texas. Dishonered was developed jointly. Dishonored 2 was lyon, pray was austin, and deathloop was lyon.
The lyon studio still exists. They are continuing to make games. The only thing announced from arcane is the marvel’s blade game. Not optimistic, but arcane may still be around a while yet.
but Dishonored, Deathloop, and Prey all did pretty well I thought
I thought Arkane Austin (the closed one) was only Prey of those. Which is a shame, because Prey was utterly fantastic.
It is. Lots of “gamers” can’t be fucked learning the difference between Austin and arkane, it’s like how there’s people who think bioware Montreal is the same as Edmonton or rockstar north is the same as san Diego when north makes GTA and the other red dead. Generally gamers don’t care what studio does what just the first part of its name. Arkane Lyon are developing blade and that’s still in progress.
Seeing Tango go is actually hurtful. Hi-fi rush was a great IP and had the potential for a great sequel if given the chance.
(I feel they wrapped it up nicely but left it open enough for a sequel.)
I hope the employees can continue making great games elsewhere but it’s sad we will never see them develop the IP further.
I never played Hi-Fi rush, Redfall, Mighty Doom, or The Evil Within. That said it looks like Tango hit their sales and quality strides. Alpha Dog and their Mighty Doom shit-ware deserves the dust bin and closure.
As cold and callous as this all sounds, I read about the Redfall development and it was leadership start to finish on that disaster. The employees, even at Alpha Dog, don’t deserve this treatment. Dinga Bakaba from Arkane Lyon stated it perfectly
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.
Fuck me, this part hurts the most, and I highly recommend anyone who didn’t read the article at least look at what was said here. Everyone knows damn well that the corporation has the ability to flourish in keeping all the talented workers who got fucked by shitty leadership, instead the leadership will fail upward and keep ruining projects. Companies have so many chances to really disrupt and show the world a better way and they continually take shallow short sighted routes to cheap monetary victory, discarding humanity along the way. Fuck companies.
I’m honestly ready to not support Xbox anymore after this. They’ve been non-stop fumbling the ball with game releases this generation. Hi-Fi Rush was the first game that came out that I felt was phenomenal and such a breathe of fresh air, and they just straight killed the studio anyways. Killing studios that make good games is not how you foster a gaming platform people want to be part of.
What the fuck? I understand Arkane Austin since they dropped the ball, but why Tango Gameworks? I was secretly hoping they’d make another game like Hi-Fi Rush…
Attention laid off workers from the gaming industry:
I’m one hundred percent ready for working, complete games, that don’t require subscriptions, and can’t be bricked remotely. Make them, and I will buy.
I will buy your products. I will buy them instead of the product being churned out by the companies that cut you.
Cool but most indie devs don’t have the capital to fund the development. They want to make those games, but they have to partner with publishers so they can afford to buy stuff like food and rent while developing before they make any sales.
The Indie scene releases a dozen of these every day. The problem is there’s actually too much and most of these fail to ever find an audience.
Wow, what hollow platitude
Gul Du J’bkat
Laid off workers don’t have the ability to choose these options though. You’re talking about management/marketing decisions.
Honestly all these tech layoffs could really come bite back publishers and the big tech in the near future.
Theres a lot new talent for competitors to snatch and fraction of these developers might even form up new studios to make the next big thing.I guess redfall ain’t getting those characters people already paid for.
I wonder how many promises Microsoft made to the FCC and other regulators about how their mergers and acquisitions wouldn’t result in layoffs?
Just a reminder that buying this game no longer supports the devs
Sail the seas friends
capitalism ruins absolutely everything
allowing the deal to happen was a big mistake.
ooh, EA has competition
