In a way endings lead to new beginnings, and while the news cycle has been sad in the game industry lately, we shouldn’t let that blind us from the hope for when things will get better.
Alongside the closure of Tango Gameworks was the closure of Arkane Austin, a decision that Phil Spencer characterized as something he does not love, but he has to make. Last May, it was reported that Microsoft made decisions to close and move around some of the studios under Zenimax, though it wasn’t clear who actually made the choice between Zenimax’s higher ups, or people above them.
Arkane Austin was founded in 2006 by its parent in Lyon, to help in development of their games moving forward. Arkane Austin’s body of work includes the first Dishonored, Prey, and of course, Redfall. Less well known now is that the studio also did a lot of work-for-hire, and some of their work on other games from the PlayStation 3 /Xbox 360 generation onward may not yet be publicly known to this day.
One of the major leads at Arkane Austin is one Harvey Smith, who has been working in the industry in 1993. He got his start in a pre-EA Origin Systems, as the QA lead for System Shock, and ultimately becoming associate producer for Ultima VIII. He also worked with Warren Spector at Iron Storm as lead designer for Deus Ex and Deus Ex Invisible War.
So, it’s quite clear that Smith’s reputation had been minted before he even joined Arkane Austin. Raphaël Colantonio was a co-founder of Arkane in Lyon, and after moving to Austin Texas, founded his own little studio there, instead of leaving the company entirely. He brought Smith in, and in that capacity, Harvey Smith became creative director on all three Dishonored games.
However, Smith’s last credit was as studio director for Redfall, and its poor release stands as a sore spot in his resume. In the bigger picture, the colleagues who he has worked with, like the abovementioned Warren Spector, and Lord British himself, Richard Garriott, have also made their missteps in the industry.
After the decision was made to end development of Redfall and close Arkane Austin, they were allowed to prepare one final update, to fix as much of the game as they can. While it seems unlikely now that Redfall will complete that redemption narrative that Cyberpunk 2077 and Sea of Thieves did, it does seem that Smith felt the love from the game’s dedicated fans.
On Twitter, Smith shared this message:
“Hearing from the people playing the cleaned up, final version of Redfall is such a burst of energy. I’m looking forward to talking about what I’ll be doing next.”
As we had noted, this certainly isn’t the first time Smith had to move on to new companies and new games. It’s certainly heartening to know this experience hasn’t soured him completely from game development. Smith may not have meant that there’s already a game company or project lined up for him already, but it’s undisputably a message of hope, looking forward to the future.
