Microsoft has closed four of its internal studios, including Redfall and Prey developer Arkane Austin and Hi-Fi Rush studio Tango Gameworks.
In an internal email seen by IGN, Xbox Game Studios head Matt Booty confirms that Arkane Austin and Tango Gameworks will both be shut down, along with Mighty Doom developer Alpha Dog Games.
Roundhouse Studios, which helped Arkane Austin out with development on Redfall, will also be closed, but all of its employees will be subsumed into ZeniMax Online Studios, the developer behind The Elder Scrolls Online.
Naturally, Alpha Dog's shutdown will also lead to Mighty Doom being sunset, which is happening on August 7th. You won't be able to make any more purchases in the game as of that date.
Booty's email also announces that Redfall development will cease, and that the game's most recent update will be its last. Players will be provided with "make-good offers" for Redfall's Hero DLC, and Arkane says it's currently working out exactly how that credit will work.
Redfall servers will, however, remain operational, so if, for some reason, you want to continue playing the game, you'll be able to do so.
It's worth saying that although Arkane Austin is being shut down, Arkane Lyon, which is currently hard at work on Marvel's Blade, remains operational. Sadly, though, this makes the likelihood of a Prey sequel that much more remote.
Additionally, Booty says that although Tango Gameworks is being shuttered, Hi-Fi Rush will remain on all platforms on which it's currently available, including PS5, to which it recently made the jump.
According to Booty, the reasoning behind these studio closures pertains to Microsoft wanting to "prioritiz[e] high-impact titles" and invest "more deeply in [its] portfolio of games and new IP".
From that, we can infer that Hi-Fi Rush, Redfall, and other games by these studios didn't quite have the financial impact Microsoft was hoping for.
This despite the fact that Microsoft recently posted pretty buoyant financial results, enjoying a 17% increase in revenue and a 23% boost in operating income when compared to last year (although Xbox's numbers were admittedly somewhat inflated by the Activision Blizzard acquisition).
We'll have to wait and see what impact this has on Microsoft, but one thing's for sure: we won't be getting any more games from Tango Gameworks or Arkane Austin. Looks like Shinji Mikami chose the perfect time to jump ship. Stay tuned for more.
