Redfall developers begged Microsoft to come back and finish its last patch: ‘I know we don’t work here anymore, but can we please release this?’
Arkane Austin, known for the acclaimed immersive sim Prey, released Redfall to widespread critical and commercial failure. Microsoft responded by shutting down the studio approximately one year after launch, marking a dramatic reversal for a developer previously respected in the gaming industry.
In a recent interview, studio director Harvey Smith provided nuance to the narrative blaming Microsoft entirely for the collapse. He acknowledged that Arkane itself became caught up in the industry-wide enthusiasm for live-service games, driven by naive optimism that the studio could succeed with this model despite evidence it often struggles for smaller teams without established live-service expertise.
- Arkane Austin's Redfall failed commercially and critically, prompting Microsoft to shut down the studio within a year
- Studio director Harvey Smith attributes part of the failure to the broader industry obsession with live-service games, not Microsoft alone
- Arkane itself became overconfident it could successfully replicate live-service models despite limited track record in the genre
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Arkane Austin was a video game studio best known for Prey, a science-fiction game praised for its detailed world and flexible approach to problem-solving. Redfall was a major shift: a cooperative game about fighting vampires, designed to receive updates after launch.
Microsoft owned Arkane Austin through its Xbox gaming business. The studio closed about a year after Redfall came out, leaving work on the game unfinished. Studio director Harvey Smith has said the decision to make a live-service game was also Arkane’s, reflecting a wider industry push towards games built around ongoing updates.
Both sides, in good faith
The strongest fair case each way — we don't pick a winner.
The case for
Microsoft faced a stark business reality: Redfall had failed both commercially and critically, and as a live-service title it required sustained investment that the studio, by its own director's admission, was not equipped to provide. Continuing to fund an unrecoverable product would have wasted shareholder resources better directed toward viable projects, making the shutdown a necessary business decision.
The case against
Arkane Austin had earned respect through acclaimed work like Prey, suggesting Redfall's failure reflected industry-wide live-service challenges rather than studio incompetence. Permitting developers to voluntarily complete a final patch would have cost Microsoft minimally whilst demonstrating professional respect and goodwill—values that matter for publisher-studio relations and community trust across a large portfolio.