Former Arkane leads say Xbox let them come in and finish Redfall’s final major update after being laid off
“I know we don’t work here anymore, but can we please release this?” they asked
A small team of Arkane developers were allowed to briefly return to Xbox after being laid off, so they could release the final update for Redfall.
In early May 2024, news broke that Microsoft had informed staff of plans to close Redfall developer Arkane Austin, alongside a number of other studios.
Redfall had released to an underwhelming reception the year before, with a Metacritic score of 56, but Bethesda head of publishing Pete Hines had said in September 2023 that it would make Redfall “a good game” despite the initial poor reaction.
When it was announced that Arkane Austin was closing, it was also reported that Redfall was set to finally get a long-promised major update featuring an offline mode and other features, but that this was likely to never be released due to the studio’s closure.
Instead, the official Redfall account on X posted two weeks later that the final update would indeed arrive, and on May 30, 2024 – nearly a month after news that the studio was closing.
Now, in an interview with The Game Business to mark the announcement of their new studio Black Pony Immersive, Arkane veterans Harvey Smith and Ben Horne explained that the update was only able to be released because Xbox allowed a small team of staff to come back and complete it after being laid off.
“We finished the game and it was very poorly received,” Smith explained. “We then worked on it for a year. We patched thousands of bugs. We then got laid off, but we had in the pipe version 1.4. It was the one that fixed tons of stuff.
“So we went to Microsoft and said: ‘I know we don’t work here anymore, but can we please release this?’ And to their credit, they did not say no. They let six or seven of us sign forms that we could come back in the building.
“After being fired, we released 1.4, which I think if we had that on day one, it wouldn’t have set the world on fire, but it was a much, much better game.”
Horne added: “It feels like an achievement unlocked for me in my career to release something after I’ve been fired and the studio closed down.”
Smith, Horne and fellow Arkane veteran Ricardo Bare have now founded Black Pony Immersive, a new studio which – as the name suggests – will focus on immersive sims like those the team are known for, such as Thief and Dishonored.
