Earlier this week we got some big news in the video game industry. You of course are all likely aware of what happened, but just in case you somehow missed it, Microsoft purchased ZeniMax Studios. We would forgive you if you’re not familiar with ZeniMax Studios, but it’s a company that owns several video game development studios. Included in the mix were MachineGames, Tango Gameworks, id Software, Bethesda Softworks, and Arkane Studios. This cost Microsoft over $7 billion and they are likely ready for these studios to start turning out projects that would be exclusive under the Xbox umbrella.
While we don’t know just what every studio is working on, it does look like Arkane Studios is preparing for their next project. Right now Arkane Studios is busy developing Death Loop, a game that’s set to still be a PC and PlayStation 5 timed exclusive. That game is set to release at some point in 2021, but after that, there are no official announcements from Arkane in what we can expect. Still, it looks like they are hiring a few employees to prepare for something new.
Development studios hire all the time so it’s nothing too out of the ordinary, but with Microsoft freshly purchasing the studio, it’s likely that they are moving towards another next-generation release. An interesting move to make note of is that they are looking for a graphics engineer that is familiar with Unreal Engine 4. It may look like the studio is moving on to another game engine which before they typically used the Void engine which is based around id Tech’s engine.
Again, there’s not much we can pick apart on just what Arkane is up to but with Death Loop nearing its release, chances are they have an idea on what to move onto next for Microsoft. Perhaps we’ll get a glimpse of it sometime soon but for now, it looks like the job offers are not going to offer any insight as to what may be coming out from this company next.