Arkane founder was saddened by the closure of Arkane Austin, but says immersive sims aren't going anywhere: The studio is gone, but 'the people survive'

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Prey

“It’s sad, of course,” Colantonio said. “They still had a lot of friends there, and I wanted to see our game going forever, for obvious reasons. But the company is [gone], but not the people. The people survive.”

Colantonio cited Looking Glass Studios, who he described as “the originator of the immersive sim,” which released groundbreaking games including Ultima Underworld (as Blue Sky Productions), System Shock, and Thief before closing its doors in 2000. Looking Glass helped inspire the foundation of Arkane, and some of its employees eventually joined the studio.

Black Isle Studios is another one: Its closure in 2003 was another sad loss, but “it’s still going,” he said, “because then you had Brian Fargo make his own company, you had Troika, you had Obsidian … We still remember Black Isle as a great company in that genre, but then we still have their games.”

He also noted that Arkane is still around in Lyon, and that people like himself, Harvey Smith, and Ricardo Bare are still on the scene too. Colantoniofounded WolfEye Studiosin 2019, and returned to the immersive sim genre withWeird West, a smaller-scale 2022 production that was very good.

“We’re doing more with WolfEye,” Colantonio said. “I’m sure they’re going to do their own stuff as well. And so the spirit of the immersive sim, I think sometimes that’s what you need—sometimes you need a renewal, you need a new impulse. And I think that’s going to spawn more little immersive sim companies. So while [the Arkane Austin closure] is a sad event, I don’t think it necessarily means that immersive sims are going to go away.”

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“I guess it was a good move for many people,” he said. “That’s the rule, though. When you sell to one of those huge, huge behemoths, you usually make a lot of money. So there were a lot of people that made a lot of money. And then at this point, you hand them the keys. And they might—you know, it’s part of the deal.”

WolfEye Studios is working on a brand new “first-person action RPG” that sounds very much like a return to Arkane’s roots. It doesn’t have a title yet, but Colantonio recently described it structurally as something of a mix ofFallout: New Vegas, Dishonored, and Prey. I’m already reaching for my wallet.

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