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microsoft-shuts-down-bethesda’s-hi-fi-rush,-redfall-studios

Microsoft shuts down Bethesda’s Hi-Fi Rush, Redfall studios

arkane, bethesda, gaming, hi-fi rush, microsoft, tango gameworks / /

Closing up shop —

Xbox maker wants to “prioritiz[e] high-impact titles” according to letter to staff.

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Artist's conception of Microsoft telling <em>Hi-Fi Rush</em> maker Tango Gameworks they no longer exist as a studio.” src=”https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/hifirush-800×452.jpeg”></img><figcaption> <p><a data-height=Enlarge / Artist’s conception of Microsoft telling Hi-Fi Rush maker Tango Gameworks they no longer exist as a studio.

Tango Gameworks

Microsoft is shutting down four studios within its Bethesda Softworks subsidiary, according to a staff email obtained by IGN. The closures include Redfall developer Arkane Austin and Hi-Fi Rush studio Tango Gameworks. While some team members will be reassigned to other parts of the company, head of Xbox Game Studios Matt Booty said in a letter to staffers “that some of our colleagues will be leaving us.”

Tango Gameworks confirmed in a short social media message that “Hi-Fi Rush, along with Tango’s previous titles [like The Evil Within], will remain available and playable everywhere they are today.” But the closure of Arkane Austin means that “development will not continue on Redfall,” the company wrote in its own social media update. “Arkane Lyon will continue their focus on immersive experiences where they are hard at work on their upcoming project [Marvel’s Blade].”

In his note to staff, Booty said that [Redfall] “will remain online for players to enjoy and we will provide make-good offers to players who purchased the Hero DLC.”

Mobile-focused Alpha Dog Studios announced that its shutdown would lead to an August 7 closure of the servers for Mighty Doom. Players can request a refund for any in-game currency for that game, which will no longer be sold as of today. Roundhouse Studios, which formed in 2019 to help with development of Redfall, will be absorbed into Elder Scrolls Online studio Zenimax Online, according to Booty’s letter.

Doom studio id Software, Starfield studio Bethesda Game Studios, and Indiana Jones and The Great Circle studio Machine Games seem unaffected by today’s cuts.

A change in focus

Redfall was widely considered a failure inside and outside Microsoft.” height=”360″ src=”https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/redfall-640×360.jpg” width=”640″>

Enlarge / Arkane Austin’s Redfall was widely considered a failure inside and outside Microsoft.

Arkane Austin

Arkane Austin’s sad fate is not too surprising given that Booty has publicly admitted that Redfall‘s troubled 2023 release was “a miss” for the company. The Tango Gameworks shutdown is more of a shock though, considering that Xbox Marketing VP Aaron Greenberg called Hi-Fi Rush “a breakout hit for us and our players in all key measurements and expectations” less than a year ago. “We couldn’t be happier with what the team at Tango Gameworks delivered with this surprise release,” he wrote at the time.

In his letter to staffers, Booty said the closures were “not a reflection of the creativity and skill of the talented individuals at these teams or the risks they took to try new things.” And while the changes will be “disruptive,” Booty said that they 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.”

The consolidation will allow Microsoft to “invest more deeply in our portfolio of games and new IP” and “create capacity to increase investment in other parts of our portfolio and focus on our priority games,” Booty continued.

“This is absolutely terrible,” Arkane Lyon Co-Creative Director Dinga Bakaba wrote in a scathing social media thread. “Permission to be human: to any executive reading this, friendly reminder that video games are an entertainment/cultural industry, and your business as a corporation is to take care of your artists/entertainers and help them create value for you.”

The Bethesda studio closures come just a few months after Microsoft laid off 1,900 employees in its 22,000 employee gaming division following the completion of its long-sought merger with Activision Blizzard.

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Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is a new first-person Nazi-whipping journey

bethesda, Bethesda Game Studios, gaming, Indiana Jones, MachineGames, nazis / /

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle —

Modern action/FPS is set inside Indy’s classic post-Ark, pre-Crusade era.

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Indiana Jones in front of an alcove in a ruin.

Enlarge / CGI Harrison Ford just can’t believe he’s getting roped into another globe-trotting adventure.

Bethesda/Machine Games

Almost two years ago to this day, Bethesda told everyone its Machine Games subsidiary was working on a new Indiana Jones game, one with “an original story.” Now we can see what Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is going to look like, with a gameplay trailer showing up during Microsoft’s Developer Direct event, and when it’s arriving: “2024.” You can now wishlist it on Steam and the Xbox store; it’s exclusive to those platforms.

Gameplay reveal trailer for Indiana Jones and the Great Circle.

While the game has Harrison Ford’s likeness, it’s not Ford voicing your character. Troy Baker, the original voice of Joel in The Last of Us, picks up the role of the archaeologist.

From the trailer, Great Circle looks a lot like the modern Wolfenstein games that Machine Games made—and that’s a good thing. The New Order and The New Colossus excelled at making you feel more like a human action hero than a shooting tank. They’ve got a knack for first-person platforming, stunts, and cinematic moments that are nowhere near as painful as in many shooters. They excel at balancing immersing you as a player and letting your character have a personality.

That, plus the developer’s interest in mystical-tinged WWII-era tales and art deco-influenced visuals, made them a natural fit for the project. It’s hard to think of Indiana Jones in the first person, but then it’s hard to think of any other team that could pull it off.

  • That cavalier charm! None but the most heinous of artifact-stealers can resist.

    Bethesda/Machine Games

  • These sites we’ve visited? They form a circle around the globe. A great circle, you might call it.

  • This is when I knew the Wolfenstein devs were involved.

    Bethesda/Machine Games

  • You will absolutely be able to whip, throw a hammer at, punch, shoot, shove, and otherwise bludgeon some Nazis.

    Bethesda/Machine Games

Machine Games has also shown a notable dedication to letting the player knock out, stab, and kill Nazis. The trailer shows Indy dispatching foes with whips, fists, and trickery but also straight-up plugging them with a revolver and two-handed machine gun. There will be other ways of dealing with foes and situations, according to Entertainment Weekly’s interview with Machine Games’ lead designer, Jerk Gustafsson.

The plot involves the theft of a relic from Indy’s teaching gig by a supersized villain, Locus. Digging into the mysterious theft, Indy makes marker-drawn stops on his paper map in the Vatican, the Himalayas, Egypt, and Thailand. There’s a journalist love interest, a villain with the decisive name Emmerich Voss, and, of course, there’s Marcus Brody.

Great Circle is the latest from Lucasfilm’s new game strategy under its Disney ownership. The firm has given out its IP licenses to lots of notable firms to make new games: Respawn with its Jedi-based series, Ubisoft’s yet-unreleased Outlaws, and a Knights of the Old Republic remake that is either dead or alive, but definitely struggling a bit.

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