Microsoft axes four game studios including Hi-Fi Rush developer

Microsoft is shutting four studios, including Tango Gameworks, the developers of Bafta award-winning Hi-Fi Rush.

The Tokyo studio is being closed alongside Texas-based Arkane Austin and Canadian developer Alpha Dog Studios.

Wisconsin-based Roundhouse Games will be absorbed into Elder Scrolls Online developer ZeniMax Online Studios.

Microsoft has not said how many jobs will be cut as a result of the closures, which are all being made at subsidiary Bethesda - which the tech giant bought for $7.5bn (then £5.85bn) in 2020.

"I just want to say that I love all the people at Arkane Austin so much," said studio head Harvey Smith in a post on X, external.

"Great times, hard times, we went through so much, together."

Head of Xbox Games Studios Matt Booty announced the news in an email to staff, seen by the BBC.

He said the move meant it was ending development on Arkane Austin game Redfall, with "some members of the team" joining other studios.

The company plans to “provide make-good offers” to players who had pre-ordered downloadable content for the game that will now never see the light of day.

“These changes are grounded in prioritising high-impact titles and further investing in Bethesda’s portfolio of blockbuster games and beloved worlds which you have nurtured over many decades,” he wrote.

He said there would also be "a small number of roles" cut across Bethesda's publishing and corporate teams.

'A gut stab'

Hi-Fi Rush was much admired by critics when it was released in 2023 - the game went on to win several end-of-year awards for its animation and sound design.

But alarm bells began ringing at Tango Gameworks after it was among the four games Microsoft released on rival consoles this year.

Its founder, Shinji Mikami, had already left to start his own rival studio.

The closure of Tango Gameworks means an end to the studio responsible for several popular games, including The Evil Within and Ghostwire: Tokyo.

In a short post on X, formerly Twitter, the developer thanked its fans.

"Thank you to everyone who explored the worlds we created," it said, external.

The move has been met with criticism from gamers as well as those within the company, with Dinga Bakaba, the studio head of Arkane Austin sister studio Arkane Lyon, calling the cuts "absolutely terrible".

"Permission to be human: to any executive reading this, friendly reminder that video games are an entertainment/cultural industry, and your business as a corporation is to take care of your artists/entertainers and help them create value for you," he wrote on X.

"For now, great teams are sunsetting before our eyes again, and it's a gut stab."

It is the latest string of cuts to come in an industry that has already seen tens of thousands of jobs lost, with Bethesda itself already facing cuts announced in January 2024.

At that point, Microsoft had around 22,000 people working in its gaming division.

BBC News
Archive [May 7 2024]

 

[I'm Retarded?]

Hi-Fi Rush struck me as a game for Fortnite kids who are still experiencing games for the first time. it was built solidly enough but the presentation was so radioactively homosexual that I instantly bounced off of it. naturally it won a bunch of gay circle-jerk awards for fags. good for the devs, I guess. studios getting dynamited by their supermassive publisher is very commonplace these days, they'll be ahead of the pack when they apply for their next job as a cultural slop assemblyman.

 

[Whiskey]

None of those things say "the game is good."

It wasn't for me but hi fi rush was genuinely a good game. Rest of the games are a bit hit and miss

 

[the_hidden_one]

That money from selling your company to a Goliath must be real nice. I mean, fuck all your employees, right?

 

[RA-5C Vigilante]

Ah, Arkane. Either Lyon or Austin, overrated by people who think Immersive Sim isn't a generic word that describes nothing about the game they're referencing, used only by pretentious Youtube faggots.


So of the many games, Prey is the only good thing Austin made, and even then it was a shitty System Shock 2 ripoff. Redfall... no introduction. And Prey, despite the praise after it was relegated to the bargain bin of Steam Sales, sold very poorly. Can't imagine why Bethesda sent them to the same killing fields EA left studios like Pandemic in.

 

[Ukraine is Big Gay]

Hi-Fi Rush struck me as a game for Fortnite kids who are still experiencing games for the first time. it was built solidly enough but the presentation was so radioactively homosexual that I instantly bounced off of it. naturally it won a bunch of gay circle-jerk awards for fags. good for the devs, I guess. studios getting dynamited by their supermassive publisher is very commonplace these days, they'll be ahead of the pack when they apply for their next job as a cultural slop assemblyman.

>He doesn't know

 

[frozen_runner]

Alpha Dog is some mobile developer under Zenimax that made "Mighty Doom," so I'll be callous and say no real loss there.

FWIW, Mighty Doom is a fun little mobile title. Gatcha bullshit, obviously, but it was a decent time-waster.

 

[George Lucas]

So I’m seeing a lot of praise for this Hi-Fi Rush game. So that means it must not have any DEI woke shit. I think I’ll pick it up because games without that shit is becoming so rare even the Japs are letting me down.

 

[Would]

Don't worships brands, worship the people who make them shine.

I will never praise or worship Hideo Kojima, Dorito Man.

Worship is the fastest way to disillusionment.

 

[I'm Retarded?]

>He doesn't know

View attachment 5969947

if this means that HFR cucked Forspoken at the retard awards, good, but both of those games are radioactively homosexual, although HFR is at least playable

 

[frozen_runner]

I will never praise or worship Hideo Kojima, Dorito Man.

Worship is the fastest way to disillusionment.

You should absolutely appreciate the things you love based on the people who made them, not the brand name. I think that's the point the poster was making.

 

[George Lucas]

You should absolutely appreciate the things you love based on the people who made them, not the brand name. I think that's the point the poster was making.

No, it should be based on the actual content you brainrotted Neanderthal.

 

[The Lawgiver]

You should absolutely appreciate the things you love based on the people who made them, not the brand name. I think that's the point the poster was making.

A good example of this dynamic is famous writers with a kind of shitty personal life like HP Lovecraft. The stories themselves were really neat but it was also cool finding out shit like his personal frustrations or worries in life were kind of channeled into the works he made and how he kind of pulled himself out of a potentially far worse situation by getting into writing. There's also the fact some characters are based on people from his life or non existant people he dreamed about and remembered the names and appearances of. Corpos and DEI middle manager types will look at these interesting things and instead of piecing it together into a larger picture just go "UUHHH YIKES? HE WAS RACIST AND BAD AND MEAN! It was a dark AND RACIST time he was from that's best forgotten!" And then they proceed to use his shit anyways and profit from it but turn itinto solely the monster shit instead of the existential dread stuff or the more surreal and tame things, only bringing up the tamer stuff to frame it like the "bad mean racist" man they use was afraid of everything to a cartoonish degree.

 

[TATE MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOODE!!]

Hi-Fi Rush struck me as a game for Fortnite kids who are still experiencing games for the first time. it was built solidly enough but the presentation was so radioactively homosexual that I instantly bounced off of it. naturally it won a bunch of gay circle-jerk awards for fags. good for the devs, I guess. studios getting dynamited by their supermassive publisher is very commonplace these days, they'll be ahead of the pack when they apply for their next job as a cultural slop assemblyman.

Ancient and aging gamers are the most pathetic and faggiest of things.

Congrats, you're not the target demographic anymore.

 

[blablabla]

I wonder why gaming is in the shithole

 

[Sniperwoof]

Sucks about Tango Gameworks. I really liked The Evil Within series and 2 ends with a blatant cliffhanger that will never be addressed now.

 

[Local FloRida-man]

Well fuck, was just thinking about it was about time for that EW3. RIP Joseph v Ruvik. What with sony doing the same, this second videogame crash is both slow and lame compared to the first.

 

[I'm Retarded?]

Ancient and aging gamers are the most pathetic and faggiest of things.

Congrats, you're not the target demographic anymore.

if you're implying that HFR, like many BAFTA Award Winning games, is made for children and easily-impressed retards who don't play games, I don't disagree.

 

[ChefKiss]

Hope they all just go join Mikami's new studio

I really dont know what Microsoft and Sony are playing at. Put your first party exclusives on PC so nobody has a reason to buy your console, fail to create an audience on your console to make other companies want to develop for your console and then shut down your first party studios so you don't even have anything to sell on PC.

 

[FieldPiece]

Holy fuck they're retarded. Kill off your one good studio (Tango) but keep the shit ones (343, The Coalition, Bethesda). Microshaft is actually impressive in their incompetence.

 

[Bagronkleton]

Buy up studio
Sit on studio for a few releases
Close studio
Retain IP to churn out derivative trash ten years later to a new demographic


A tale as old as time.