Microsoft, after spending the last few years acquiring major game publishers to join the Xbox fold, has closed down four studios under Bethesda.
These are Tango Gameworks, Arkane Austin, Alpha Dog Studios and Roundhouse Games.
Tango Gameworks are the team behind last year’s phenomenal character action game Hi-Fi Rush (which was recently ported to PS5). The team founded by famed game director Shinji Mikami also did the Evil Within Series and Ghostwire Tokyo.
Arkane Austin is one-half of Arkane Studios. The team behind the excellent immersive sim Prey (2017) never got to recover their reputation of releasing only bangers, leaving Redfall as their final game. Work for upcoming updates have stopped, so promised extra heroes DLC from the Hero Pass will not arrive. But players who did purchase the Hero Pass- directly or via the premium editions, will be compensated.
The other half of Arkane Studios, Arkane Lyon, will live on. That team is busy in developing Marvel’s Blade, so the Dishonored series will lie dormant for a little while it seems.
Alpha Dog Games were the mobile game developers under Bethesda which produced games like Mighty Doom, which will “sunset” (closing down as live service ends) on August 7.
Roundhouse Studios, the team comprised of talents that were under Human Head (which had a long, long history with Bethesda) will be absorbed into ZeniMax Online Studios to work on The Elder Scrolls Online. Roundhouse Studios has previously served as a support studio under Bethesda,
Xbox Game Studios head Matt Booty, in an email to staff (obtained and verified by several outlets including IGN and Bloomberg), explains the changes in Bethesda being made here are “grounded in prioritizing high-impact titles and further investing in Bethesda’s portfolio of blockbuster games”.
Bethesda still has a seemingly strong lineup this year with that Indiana Jones game, and ongoing support for Starfield, Fallout 76 and The Elder Scrolls Online. But that doesn’t stop the fact that Microsoft has just laid off so many talents off after acquiring them for billions of dollars ($7.5 billion USD in the case of ZeniMax, parent company of Bethesda).