In May 2024, Microsoft shut down a few studios, one of which was Arkane Austin, and this Thursday Founder and Former President called the move “stupid” in an interview.
Although it has been half of a calendar year, WolfEye Studios boss and Arkane Austin Founder/Former President Raphael Colantonio stays frustrated by Microsoft’s decision to cut Arkane Austin from its catalogue of studios earlier this year. The Former President remained the head of the studio until 2017 when Colantonio left to found WolfEye Studios (which has recently teased its next project), but the former founder is still upset by the move from Microsoft and said so in an interview on Thursday with PC Gamer.
While many attribute the closure of Arkane Austin to the lacklustre sales of the most recent release, Redfall, Arkane Austin was responsible for fan-favourite titles like Prey and the Dishonored series when Colantonio was President. In the interview, Colantonio says “I think if you look a little bit, it’s obvious that Arkane Austin was a very special group of people that have made some cool things and that could pull it off again,” continuing with “I think it was a decision that just came down to, ‘We need to cut something.’ Was it to please the investors, the stock market? They’re playing a different game” regarding the decision to close the studio.
Colantonio further drives his point by saying “Recreating a very special group like that is, I would dare to say, impossible. It takes forever. When you have that magic of Harvey [Smith] and Ricardo [Bare] etc that all come together, it’s a specific moment in time and space that just worked out this way, that took forever to reach. Those people together can really make magic” about the team assembled at the former Arkane Austin studio.
Colantonio concludes by saying “It’s not like, ‘Doesn’t matter, we’ll just rehire.’ No, try it. That’s what big groups do all the time. They try to just hire massively and overpay people to create those magic groups. It doesn’t work like this. So to me, that was stupid” regarding the decision Microsoft made to cut the Arkane Austin studio.
Arkane Austin’s most recent release before closure was Redfall, a critical flop according to Metacritic, where it scored a 56%. CGMagazine’s review of Redfall calls It “monotonous” and bashes the only-host progression when playing with others. While it appears Arkane Austin has shipped its last game, Colantonio is hard at work on his next FPS project with WolfEye Studios.
