The games industry is still reeling from the aftershock of Microsoft/Xbox announcing the closure of three, effectively four, game development studio under Bethesda (the one is absorbed into another studio).
A day after the announcement, a town hall meeting was held for all ZeniMax/Bethesda employees addressing the closure, and according to the report by The Verge, Xbox Game Studios head Matt Booty said that “we need smaller games that give us prestige and awards.”
This is a day after Tango Gameworks, developer of Hi-Fi Rush, was shut down.
Hi-Fi Rush won a Game Award, A GDC award and a BAFTA. Bethesda, during the lead-up to the game’s PS5 release, calls Hi-Fi Rush as an award winning title, featured in 50+ “Best Of 2023” lists.
According to GOTY Tracker, a website that tracks Game Of The Year awards on various outlets, Hi-Fi Rush didn’t top any of those lists. Though it did go as high as #2 in at least one of those lists: Gamer Matters.
Whether one considers Hi-Fi Rush is a “small game” is debatable, however. No budget numbers were ever publicly declared (though the marketing budget we can assume to be low given the shadowdrop release of the game), but the game has so much polish and development time that game director John Johanas says “it ain’t no indie game“.
But it is a smaller game relative to a AAA blockbuster in terms of game length (under 10 hours to finish the story, but with extra modes) and scope (there are fans who don’t see this game as on par as Halo or other blockbuster Xbox game.
If anything, Johanas’ reaction on The Verge’s report says it all: an image of Hi-Fi Rush character Peppermint stone-faced and mid-blinking.
Kazuaki Egashira, Project Manager at the now-defunct Tango Gameworks, had a more pointed tweet. Two English words from an account that rarely tweet in English, “Not enough?” with two pictures attached of all the award hauls Hi-Fi Rush and Tango Gameworks had acquired.
In the same hall town meeting, based on Bloomberg’s report, Xbox is still looking to cut more roles even after the closures at Bethesda. Previously, newly-acquired Activision Blizzard was also affected by layoffs, though no studios were closed other than developer Toys For Bob becoming independent.