Xbox: Closed Bethesda Studios was working on Hi-Fi Rush 2 and an immersive sim, according to Bloomberg

According to a report published by Jason Schreier on the pages of Bloomberg, Pillars of Austin and Tango Gemworks She was Working on new projects And hire staff to make it happen before closing it.

For those who missed it, yesterday it was confirmed that four Bethesda studios have been shut down by Microsoft: Tango Gameworks, Arkane Austin, Roundhouse Studios, and Alpha Dog Games.

As for Tango Gameworks, the author of The Evil Inside and Ghostwire Tokyo series, according to Schreier’s sources, it appears that the studio was preparing A step up to the sequel to Hi-Fi Rushwhich project proposal Microsoft should have given the green light to or not.

It is worth noting that Aaron Greenberg, head of marketing at Xbox, confirmed that “Hi-Fi Rush was a huge success across all key metrics and expectations,” which in some ways contradicts Microsoft’s decision to shut down the studio.

It seems that Arkane Austin, after the commercial failure of Redfall, wanted to return to his origins with the A single-player immersive sim gamea definition that could also include a new Dishonored, as Schreier reported.

Reasons for the closure of Arkane Austin and Tango Gameworks

Again, according to testimony from Bloomberg sources, today there was a meeting between Matt Botti, head of Xbox Studios, and employees of ZeniMax (the company headed by Bethesda), where they praised Hi-Fi Rush and determined that Arkane Austin’s closure is not related to Redfall’s flopNo specific explanations were given for the closure of each of the affected studios.

In general, he justified the decision by saying that Bethesda Studios was too thinly distributed and that closing them might free up resources elsewhere. Jill Braff, head of studios at ZeniMax, added that the closures will allow the company to do so Focus on fewer projects Improve efficiency. It also seems that the recruitment drive initiated by Tango and Arkane for new projects also influenced the decision made by Microsoft.

“It’s difficult to support nine studios around the world with a weak core team that has an ever-growing palette of things to do,” Braff said, based on a recording obtained by Bloomberg. “I think we were about to collapse“.

Obviously, you take all of the above details with a pinch of salt, even though Jason Schreier is considered one of the most reliable journalists in the industry.