Veteran game designer Harvey Smith, best known for creating the original Deus Ex and co-leading the Dishonored series, has launched a new studio called Black Pony Immersive alongside longtime collaborator Ben Horne. The studio will focus on narrative-rich, first-person action RPGs in the immersive sim genre Smith has spent his career defining, arriving at a turbulent moment for the games industry following major layoffs and studio closures at Xbox.

Horne, who worked with Smith for eight years including as production director on Redfall at Arkane Austin, joins as a co-founder, while Redfall, Prey and Dishonored creative director Ricardo Bare comes aboard as design director. The Austin, Texas-based studio, which also employs remote staff across the US, draws on veterans from Insomniac, Epic, Avalanche and Volition. The announcement follows Xbox's 2024 closure of Arkane Austin, which Smith previously led, and comes in the same week that Deus Ex collaborator Warren Spector announced his retirement from the industry.