The gaming industry is going through a very tough time. News of layoffs and studio closures are getting far too common, with reports of Take-Two shutting down Rollerdrome developer Roll7 going public just a few days ago, and Deliver Us Mars developer KeokeN also laying off its entire team.
Now, it’s been devastatingly discovered that Xbox has shuttered four studios under the Bethesda umbrella, with one of them having delivered arguably the best Xbox game in recent years.
Hi-Fi Rush Developer Tango Gameworks Closed By Xbox
IGN first reported on the news, as they received a copy of an official email that announced Xbox will be closing down Arkane Austin, Tango Gameworks, Alpha Dog, and Roundhouse Games. The platform holder acquired these studios as part of the $7.5B Zenimax acquisition in 2021.
The news is a gut punch for fans, especially of Tango, who shadow-dropped Hi-Fi Rush in January 2023. The rhythmic action-brawler may have been niche, but it racked up an expansive amount of critical acclaim, and even made its way to PlayStation 5 and Nintendo Switch this year.
Tango also created one of the best horror franchises in the games industry – The Evil Within. Many fans were looking forward to a third entry after 2017’s The Evil Within 2, but it seems that will never happen now. The same goes for Ghostwire Tokyo, another quirky horror IP Tango released in 2022.
Studio Behind Dishonored, Prey, And Redfall Also Bids Adieu
Arkane Austin’s shuttering comes just over a year after the launch of its last game – Redfall. While the vampiric co-op shooter may have flopped at launch, Arkane was hard at work making improvements to the game, such as bug fixes and adding the promised 60fps mode on Xbox consoles in late 2023.
Interestingly, Redfall was recently in the news for not adding the two new heroes that the premium edition of the game promised at launch. Now that Arkane Austin’s operations have ceased, the studio has announced that the game’s previous update will unfortunately be its last, so the season pass will remain incomplete forever.
Arkane Austin kicked off the beloved action-adventure series Dishonored with the titular 2012 game, which received glowing praise, sold millions of copies, and accrued loads of nominations and awards. 2017’s Prey was also another Arkane banger as one of the best sci-fi horror games ever, which will most likely never see a continuation.
Some may read ‘Arkane’ and think the upcoming Blade game may have been shelved as well, but there’s nothing to fear, as Blade is being developed by Arkane Lyon, which is situated in France and is a separate entity from the Austin studio.
Alpha Dog, the studio behind the mobile game Mighty Doom, will also be closing its doors, as well as support for the game. Roundhouse Games, meanwhile, will be shut down and its developers will be shifted to Zenimax Online Studios.
While these closures are obviously all very disheartening, Tango’s is probably the most shocking. Microsoft stated last year that Hi-Fi Rush exceeded all their key expectations and metrics, so it’s perplexing as to why they’d shut down the studio that made this gem. All we can hope for, though, is that the affected developers get back on their feet as soon as possible.
