Following the sudden shutdown of Arkane Austin in May 2024, a handful of laid-off developers made an unusual request to Microsoft: let them come back to work one last time to fix their game.
When Microsoft announced the studio's closure, it seemed that Redfall's long-promised offline mode and major 1.4 update were dead in the water. The co-op vampire shooter had suffered a disastrous launch in 2023, scoring a dismal 56 on Metacritic. Despite Xbox's earlier promises to turn the game around, the studio closure appeared to be the final nail in the coffin.
However, two weeks after the shutdown, Xbox surprised fans by releasing the massive May 30 update.
Now, Arkane veterans Harvey Smith and Ben Horne have revealed how that patch actually came to be. Speaking to The Game Business, Smith explained that the team had already put a year of work into thousands of bug fixes before being let go. Unwilling to see their final efforts discarded, they reached out to their former parent company.
“We went to Microsoft and said: ‘I know we don’t work here anymore, but can we please release this?’” Smith shared. “To their credit, they did not say no. They let six or seven of us sign forms so we could come back into the building.”
Horne called the surreal experience an "achievement unlocked," noting how rare it is to release a game update after being fired. Smith admitted that while the 1.4 patch wouldn't have "set the world on fire" at launch, it transformed Redfall into a significantly better game.
With Redfall behind them, Smith and Horne—alongside fellow Arkane alum Ricardo Bare—have launched a new studio called Black Pony Immersive. True to their roots, the team plans to focus on the immersive sim genre that made them famous with titles like Dishonored and Thief.
What We Know So Far
Arkane Austin, Roundhouse Studios confirmed that the game is being built for Xbox Series X|S, PC (Microsoft Windows), with improved visuals, new mechanics, and environments designed around the storybook theme.
We wanted to create a world that feels like stepping into a storybook — full of wonder, surprises, and discovery around every corner.
— Arkane Austin, Roundhouse Studios
Related Game
Redfall
Xbox Series X|S, PC (Microsoft Windows) · Arkane Austin, Roundhouse Studios · Shooter, Role-playing (RPG), Adventure
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