Laid-off Arkane developers returned to finish Redfall's final update after their studio was closed

Six or seven developers walked back into a building they no longer worked in to ship a game no one expected to see finished. That game was Redfall, the vampire-themed co-op shooter from Arkane Austin — a studio Microsoft shuttered in May 2024 alongside three other Bethesda teams, including Tango Gameworks, maker of the acclaimed Hi-Fi Rush.

Redfall had launched in 2023 to poor reviews, landing a Metacritic score of 56. By September of that year, Bethesda's then-head of publishing Pete Hines publicly vowed the studio would keep going until Redfall was "a good game." For roughly a year, the Arkane Austin team did exactly that — patching thousands of bugs and building toward version 1.4, a major update that would add an offline mode and other long-promised features. Then, in early May 2024, Microsoft informed staff of plans to close the studio. VGC

At the time of the closure announcement, it was widely reported that Redfall's final update would likely never see the light of day. Two weeks later, the official Redfall account on X posted that the update would arrive after all. On May 30, 2024 — nearly a month after the studio's closure became public — it did. Game Developer

In an interview with The Game Business marking the announcement of their new studio, Black Pony Immersive, former Arkane Austin co-creative director Harvey Smith and studio director Ben Horne explained how version 1.4 crossed the finish line. Smith said that after the layoff, about six or seven former staff signed forms allowing them to re-enter the building and push the update out the door. VGC

Horne described the experience of releasing something after being fired and after the studio had closed down as feeling like an "achievement unlocked" for his career. Smith was more measured about the game itself: had version 1.4 shipped on day one, he said, it would not have "set the world on fire," but it would have been a much better game.

The closures were part of a broader wave of cuts across Microsoft's gaming division. An Arkane leader publicly criticised Microsoft executives over the shutdowns, calling the move a "f-ing gut stab." VGC In the months that followed, reports indicated that Arkane Lyon — the French sibling studio behind Dishonored and Blade — also faced possible closure. Xbox later laid off more than 200 workers at the studio behind The Elder Scrolls Online. VGC

Smith, Horne, and fellow Arkane veteran Ricardo Bare have since founded Black Pony Immersive. The three are the latest in a line of developers turning a studio ending into a new one beginning.