Head of Xbox Studios Mat Booty said Microsoft has no plans to close Arkane Austin after Redfall, the team’s take on multiplayer shooters, launched to poor critical and consumer reception. Booty made the comments to Axios (thanks Eurogamer) and said the Redfall team is still working to improve the game in future updates.
“That is the plan right now,” Booty said when asked whether Arkane Austin would remain open. “They are hard at work on updates and continued content for Redfall [and we want to] support them to be able to keep working to deliver the game they had in mind.”
“The game they had in mind” echoes head of Xbox Phil Spencer’s comments when he publicly acknowledged Redfall was a disappointment – though Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier said Arkane Austin didn’t even want to make Redfall. Schreier’s sources told him that Arkane Austin hoped Xbox would can the project after Microsoft purchased their parent company, Bethesda, but that didn’t happen.
In a roundtable discussion after the Xbox Games Showcase that GLHF attended, Booty left Redfall and Arkane Austin out of Microsoft’s slate of games while discussing how he believes Xbox has “turned the corner” in 2023.
Still, at least the studio remains open and its team members employed, despite the snub. Earlier in 2023, Microsoft laid off several key people on the 343 Industries team who worked on Halo Infinite.
Written by Josh Broadwell on behalf of GLHF
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