Raphaël Colantonio is one of the most accomplished veterans in the video game industry, even if he isn’t quite a household name, in the same way that Neil Druckmann or Tim Sweeney.
After getting scouted by Electronic Arts as a teen, and working for them somewhat briefly, Colantonio founded Arkane Studios in 1999, overseeing the company’s trajectory for nearly twenty years. Among the games under Colantonio’s belt are Arx Fatalis, the Dishonored trilogy, and the Prey reboot.
Colantonio left Arkane in 2017, the same year that they released Prey and Dishonored: Death of the Outsider. He launched a new studio called WolfEye Studios, which released their first game, Weird West, in 2022.
Earlier today Colantonio made this announcement on Twitter:
“We’ll reveal a bit more about our next game in a few days… Fans of the previous 1st person games I was involved with (Dishonored and Prey) will be happy.”
While Colantonio seemed to have the world on his shoulders when he was heading Arkane, the situation in WolfEye at least seemed initially different. Weird West is not a full 3D action game like Prey and Dishonored, but it did demonstrate that Colantonio still had his druthers when it came to good game design.
Weird West is also an action RPG, with a top-down perspective instead of full 3D, to which Colantonio added a layer of immersive sim. Any decisions and actions you make permanently affect the game, even if you die and respawn on the same save. Reviews were mostly positive, and it won best Role Playing Game of the Year at the 26th D.I.C.E. Awards.
WolfEye would later reveal that Weird West reached 2 million players in less than two years. That metric is an indication of how the game is available on both PlayStation Plus and Xbox Game Pass. While it’s not as clear cut as touting retail unit sales, it is still clear that the title had been a financial success.
So it took Colantonio and his new studio a few months to prepare to unveil their next title. Based on his teaser, he may have gotten the funding prepared for a full 3D action game again. But even if it’s not quite at that scale, and Colantonio doesn’t make a AAA scale game again, it seems to be a safe bet that he’ll still be making something that is worth your time and money. We’re definitely looking forward to learning what WolfEye has in store for us in the near future.
