Jason Schreier, a popular journalist, has just reported that Xbox will be shutting down two major studios that are part of Bethesda. The creators of The Evil Within, Hi-Fi Rush, and Ghostwire Tokyo, Tango Gameworks, will be shutting down. At first, this studio had Shinji Mikami as director.
Arkane Austin will also be closing down. This studio was behind one of the biggest failures in recent years, the co-op PvE called Redfall, which almost had no players at launch. Two additional studios will face dismantling due to their underperformance.
Xbox Will Be Shutting Down Tango Gameworks and Arkane Austin
The industry keeps suffering massive losses. Microsoft has just announced that it will be shutting down various studios from Bethesda/Zenimax Group. Jason Schreier first reported on this development. Matt Booty, director of Xbox Game Studios, sent an email announcing that every studio will be closing for good. Arkane Austin, Tango Gameworks, Alpha Dog Studios, and Roundhouse Games are the four studios that will be closing down permanently.
All these studios never launched a game that was a complete success; many of these titles did not even get a million copies sold; they were a total failure for Bethesda.
IPs like Ghostwire: Tokyo, The Evil Within, Arkane, Mighty Doom, and The Elder Scrolls Online were not popular enough, and these titles didn’t recover their budget in sales, especially Redfall, which was the worst launch for Xbox in years.
For Bethesda and Microsoft, Hi-Fi Rush and Redfall Were Losses
Booty clarified in the mail that there will be a couple of layoffs in the publisher and corporate teams of Bethesda and Microsoft, trying to cut as many losses as possible. This also indicates that this is a kind of reorganization strategy to give priority to more impactful IPs in the worlds created by Bethesda. Booty also said that members of Arkane Austin will be joining another studio to avoid many employees losing their jobs.
Redfall will not receive any more updates, while Mighty Doom will disappear on August 7 and will not allow any in-game purchases. This title was from Alpha Dog Studios. Tango Gameworks will also be shutting down completely, but at least Hi-Fi Rush will still be available in every store. Zenimax Online will welcome Roundhouse Games, absorbing the entire team into another division of the company.
This is a sad day for the industry; an enormous restructuring of these studios is the only way that Microsoft can make less money. It is imperative that big companies think very hard about every new project to avoid this kind of action in the future. The idea is to make attractive titles that can be profitable in the market without losing millions of dollars in the process. Video game companies have lost over 8,000 jobs since the start of the year.
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