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This one's a head-scratcher. Less than a day after shutting down both Arkane Austin and Tango Gameworks—the latter of which created Hi-Fi Rush—Microsoft's Matt Booty held a town hall wherein he proclaimed: «We need smaller games that give us prestige and awards.»
One day after closing Hi-Fi Rush developer Tango Gameworks, Xbox studios boss Matt Booty reportedly told staff the company needs “smaller games that give us prestige and awards”.
Following the unexpected move to shut down three game studios and merge another with ZeniMax Online, we learned that Microsoft is still planning more cuts to its Xbox division. But that's not the full extent of the company's re-evaluation of its gaming strategy.
Arkane Austin was reportedly pitching an immersive sim title before its closure, it’s claimed.
After laying off thousands of employees over the past couple years, games industry executives appear to be adopting a more efficient method of what they euphemistically call «reprioritization»: closing entire studios. Take-Two axed two studios just last week, and now Microsoft has bulldozed four more, including Arkane Austin and Tango Gameworks, which it acquired when it bought Bethesda in 2021.
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.
Microsoft has shuttered three ZeniMax teams: Arkane Austin, Tango Gameworks and Alpha Dog Studios. The company is also folding Roundhouse Games into Zenimax Online Studios. Arkane Austin is the home of Prey and Redfall, while Tango is responsible for The Evil Within, Ghostwire Tokyo and Hi-Fi Rush. Alpha Dog is the creator of Mighty Doom and Roundhouse was a support studio for ZeniMax projects.
Microsoft's Xbox division has decided to shut down four Bethesda Softworks studios, the most prominent being Arkane Austin and Tango Gameworks.