Closed Xbox studios pitched sequels to Hi-Fi Rush, Dishonored

Microsoft shocked its fans earlier this week with the closure of Tango Gameworks, Arkane Austin, and Mighty Dog Games. Now, we’ve learned more about what these studios were working on.

A new report from Bloomberg delved into the fallout of these closures by Microsoft. Its anonymous sources claimed that “Tango was in the process of pitching a sequel” to Hi-Fi Rush, the critically acclaimed rhythm action game that launched last year. That certainly comes as a disappointment, as what could’ve potentially become a new hallmark franchise for Microsoft and Bethesda was kneecapped before it could truly take off.

Then there’s Arkane Austin. IGN confirmed that an offline update and new heroes were planned for Redfall this year. Additionally, the Bloomberg report says the studio was also pitching its next title, claiming that Arkane Austin wanted its next project to be “a new single-player ‘immersive sim’ game, such as a new entry in the Dishonored series,” rather than another multiplayer game like Redfall. None of these projects will see the light of day now.

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Bloomberg provided insight into a town hall meeting held after the studio closures, during which Head of Xbox Game Studios Matt Booty and Head of ZeniMax Studios Jill Braff claimed that Xbox management was spread too thin across all of the studios it spent billions acquiring over the past several years. “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. I think we were about to topple over,” Braff said in the meeting.

It looks like Tango Gameworks and Arkane Austin specifically were prime targets for closure because they were between projects and needed a lot of resources and oversight for whatever would come next from them.