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