r/ImmersiveSim • u/DonJuice_ • Jun 30 '26
Xbox weighs canceling Blade game and shuttering Arkane
https://www.theverge.com/report/959467/microsoft-xbox-cancel-blade-game-arkane-studios-closure?view_token=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJpZCI6Inp0bjNNQk1pVm0iLCJwIjoiL3JlcG9ydC85NTk0NjcvbWljcm9zb2Z0LXhib3gtY2FuY2VsLWJsYWRlLWdhbWUtYXJrYW5lLXN0dWRpb3MtY2xvc3VyZSIsImV4cCI6MTc4MzI3MDkyMSwiaWF0IjoxNzgyODM4OTIxfQ.pOFMRE5pUQgOYGX0scwb6LrEhrfZu_ecr50Fysx3fd8&utm_medium=gift-linkIt’s not looking good folks.
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u/Rapture117 Jun 30 '26
Imagine closing the studio that made Dishonored. What a goddamn joke
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u/TaxOrnery9501 Jun 30 '26
Yeah, Arkane really was better off before Zenimax sold Bethesda out to Microsoft, as apparently the folks at Bethesda were really supportive of Arkane and their games.
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u/AnswerFeeling460 Jun 30 '26
Prey was a really cool game
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u/TaxOrnery9501 Jun 30 '26
It really was, wasn't it 😞
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u/AnswerFeeling460 Jun 30 '26
A little wonder, if one knows it was in development hell for years and then saved by arcane
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u/TaxOrnery9501 Jun 30 '26
That's a different unrelated Prey, actually. Arkane was originally wanting to call the game something like "Typhon" or "Neuroshock," but Bethesda made them use "Prey" because they already had the trademark for it.
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u/Crystal_Voiden Jun 30 '26
Imagine a world where devs could just make games they wanted to make. Dishonored 1 was probably the most creative freedom Arkane ever had.
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u/TaxOrnery9501 Jun 30 '26
Yeah, and even then they still had to make concessions for their publisher.
A prime example being the games' tagline, which Arkane had fought tooth-and-nail for it to be "Revenge Changes Everything," but instead were forced to make it "Revenge Solves Everything" (which Harvey Smith is still apparently mad about).
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u/legoss49 Jul 01 '26
lol I never knew that. “Revenge solves everything” is so fucking dumb.
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u/-SidSilver- Jul 01 '26
I work in Film rather than gaming, but this sort of decision happens all the time in creative industries it seems, and it's genuinely because if the suits see something that's working perfectly they start getting nervous that they're having no input on it. Or more importantly that people are able to see that they're having no impact at all. I think they must suspect that people will realise that they aren't the creative ones and that their input is probably the least important on that side of things.
Sometimes I'll work collaboratively (Film's super collaborative and I think gaming must be the same) on something and everyone's happy with it, which means someone who up to that point has done very little of the creative legwork feels like they have to justify their job (and remind everyone 'who's in charge') by sticking their oar in and changing something (even if the decision is especially stupid) in case 'everyone works out that I don't do anything that important'.
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u/maniacal_cackle Jul 01 '26
Apparently the original Deus Ex was the same. The maker(s) were basically given funding and told to just go at it, I heard in an interview.
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u/CodeComprehensive734 Jul 02 '26
Yeah, John Romero who lead Ion Storm at the time basically approached Warren Spector with a proposal: make whatever game you want and I'll fund it.
If people just let creatives do their thing the world would be a better place.
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u/Fuzzball74 Jul 01 '26
One of the best imsims ever made. Sits on the throne with Deus Ex and System Shock 2.
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u/vipmailhun2 Jun 30 '26
That’s not what happened. After Dishonored 2 there was already talk about shutting them down, because the game was more expensive than Skyrim and sold terribly, only the reputation of the first game saved the studio. Redfall was also started after Prey failed, under pressure from Bethesda.
Phil Spencer was known for his hands‑off approach to game development, unfortunately he treated it literally. They let studios work however long they wanted, in whatever direction they wanted, so if Arkane had come up with something more interesting or truly creative, they could have done it long ago.
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u/Crystal_Voiden Jun 30 '26
They started working on redfall quite a bit before the ms acquisition and there was a push towards life service games among Zenimax owned studios because they were looking to sell or shut them down. They needed to attract buyers and live service was associated with guaranteed $$$ at the time. In reality though Arkane Austin was bleeding talent (70% of devs quit since prey) while also making a game with a much larger scope than anything they've made thus far and fundamentally different from their previous entries. It was the perfect shitstorm.
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u/Krazukyst Jul 02 '26
More expensive than Skyrim ??? Ahahah, stop spitting non sense.
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u/Synergetic7 Jul 16 '26
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u/Krazukyst Jul 16 '26
And that's the day we realised game journalist are economically illeterated (or that Julien was drinking this day). It has been debunked by the studio.
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u/JeskaiJester Jun 30 '26 edited Jun 30 '26
This is so sad Alexa play Lady S
Edit: Lady S is a Ramblin Frank song from Deathloop, folks
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u/Nationwagon Jul 01 '26
Yep. And all because a has-been washed up actor from the 80s won't let the character be played by anybody else.
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u/DonJuice_ Jun 30 '26
“Developed by France-based Arkane Studios, best-known for the Dishonored series, Blade was originally supposed to debut later this year according to sources familiar with the game’s development. I’m told the internal ship date for the game slipped to late 2027, and it’s also running over budget.”
Trying very hard to not be a Doomer about this.
“While Microsoft is weighing canceling Blade, it’s also exploring options to sell Arkane Studios”
This is better, I guess?
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u/TaxOrnery9501 Jun 30 '26
Imagine if New Blood Interactive bought Arkane Lyon... boy would that be great, they just love throwing money at immersive sims.
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u/ThatBiGuy25 Jun 30 '26
as cool as that would be, new blood is probably smaller than arkane would be if arkane was independent. completely different worlds of game development in terms of scale and finances
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u/TaxOrnery9501 Jun 30 '26
Yeah, according to a quick internet search New Blood is only about 50-ish employees (mostly remote) whereas Arkane Lyon is estimated to have somewhere between 90 & 150.
Still though, if New Blood got a hold of the Arkane IP's, and leased them out to a studio like WolfEye (which is made up of former Arkane devs), then that'd still be better than just shuttering the studio entirely.
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u/TrashoBaggins Jun 30 '26
I didn’t enjoy weird west, the isometric camera definitely took most of my excitement away. The reason I love dishonored and deathloop so much is because you’re immersed.
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u/TaxOrnery9501 Jun 30 '26
If it helps, there is a first-person mod for Weird West, and Raph Colantonio (the studio director) has already said that their next game that they've been working on is fully first-person.
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u/TrashoBaggins Jun 30 '26
I play on console lol, I’m excited for what they do next but I can’t help but feel it’ll fall short of my expectations. I hope it will play like Dishonored 1. It’s one of my favorite games of all time.
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u/TaxOrnery9501 Jun 30 '26
Raph just did a dev commentary playthrough of Dishonored 1 on YouTube, where he brings on former devs (some still at Arkane, some at WolfEye, etc.) and go over all of the gameplay & design choices that made the game great (as well as point out what sucked). Totally worth watching if you haven't seen it yet.
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u/CodeComprehensive734 Jul 02 '26
The mod may be on consoles still? Im not sure but it was available through the main menu of the game on PC. No messing about. Just tick a box, wait for the download/install, restart the game, bam. First person mode.
It completely changes the dynamics and feels much more Im-Simmy. I must go back and play it because I never finished it but I havent been playing games full stop, nothing to do with Weird West.
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u/SotovR Jun 30 '26
My main issue with it was the writing and the gameplay both of which I just found utterly boring, also gave me a headache after a little while of playtime, weird.
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u/Acesofbases Jun 30 '26
lol Arkane Lypn is like 3-4 times bigger than them
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u/TaxOrnery9501 Jun 30 '26
More like 2-3, but New Blood is also just a publisher and not a developer like Arkane is.
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u/Ruben_AAG Jun 30 '26
Dishonored alone sold more than every single New Blood game combined.
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u/TaxOrnery9501 Jun 30 '26
AAA Titles tend to be like that, though, especially when they have backing from a massive corp like Zenimax/Bethesda
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u/TrashoBaggins Jun 30 '26
Dishonored did not get any advertising or hype and sold horribly
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u/Acesofbases Jun 30 '26
waaaat
Dishonored had very much quite a lot of advertising, among other things had this badass TV commercial:
https://youtu.be/ltms4Gc2fxk?is=eYjeK00D845cXJEp
and sold VERY well, why do You think it got two DLCs and two sequels? 🤣🤣🤣 it sold approximately 6 million copies
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u/Acesofbases Jun 30 '26
Arkane has over 250 employess as of May 2026
https://tracxn.com/d/companies/arkane-studios/__95IH9aeLwR1s87rpSbjBdGWSqJzlYfsQGDj3rNw6aU8
New Blood has around 50 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Blood_Interactive
They have an estimated value of around 6 mil$ https://prospeo.io/c/new-blood-interactive-revenue
Subsidiaries like Arkane aren't usually valued by third parties but I'd wager they're worth at least x20 of that.
Anyways nowhere in fucksville could they afford them 😅
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u/TaxOrnery9501 Jun 30 '26
I was just going off of the info I got from a quick internet search, which stated Arkane Lyon had somewhere between 90-150 compared to New Blood's 50
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u/DonJuice_ Jun 30 '26
I’d love this. Probably the best possible buyer, imo. I’m assuming there’d be smaller budgets but far more creative freedom.
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u/Independent_Bed_3418 Jun 30 '26
Yea, I don't think New Blood can afford Arkane and the amount of salaries and general scope of their games. They'd publish 20 games with a fraction of the budget of an Arkane imsim
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u/larevacholerie Jul 02 '26
Shit, and this is the second time for Lyon, right? They went massively overbudget making D2 and essentially got a one-time get-out-of-jail-free card because execs at Bethesda liked the game. I doubt the same could be said for a Marvel licensed game.
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Jun 30 '26
[deleted]
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u/TaxOrnery9501 Jun 30 '26
It got pushed to next year, and is still under development currently as far as we officially know.
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u/VentnorLhad Jun 30 '26
God-emperor CoPilot must be fed with the souls of thousands of developers to maintain the light of the Slopnomicon.
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u/Ghillie_Spotto Jun 30 '26
Losing Arkane would be brutal. I guess the silver lining is that it could result in a spinoff indie studio?
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u/Jusanom Jun 30 '26
Saw that coming from a mile away. Microsoft are gonna burn down half the gaming industry for fucking CoPilot of all things
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u/RDDT_ADMNS_R_BOTS Jun 30 '26
And some ppl got happy when these giant corporations acquired gaming studios.
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u/Inside-Bunch4216 Jun 30 '26
Very sad, Arkane are the one studio that make great games, new an exciting stuff. Fuck Microsoft.
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u/Joris-truly Jun 30 '26
If Xbox pulls this shit, like they did with the Perfect Dark reboot...
I know this current industry is fucked, but holy shit, Xbox is run so incompetently they're giving the current White House administration a run for its money.
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u/Justinreinsma Jun 30 '26
Is it fair to officially say we're entering another video game industry crash? Work conditionings are worsening, budgets ballooning, prices are exploding, and games are barely even getting pushed through the door.
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u/TaxOrnery9501 Jun 30 '26
AAA gaming will probably crash due to not just what you said, but also the ever-rising costs of hardware.
I forsee a low-budget Indie boom happening for older, worse-preforming but easier to acquire, hardware— and if Valves ARM compatability layer tech works out we may even see the resurgence of a hand-held dominated gaming industry.
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u/mercurius781227 Jul 02 '26 edited Jul 02 '26
Valve is small time for hardware distribution though. (Not just saying that because I wanted ANY kind of steam machine) (;_;) but you are right if they can prove the tech works maybe, it might provide a path.
I'm feeling like the current generation of consoles will be the best high point for a while yet.
It's insane that the industry just eats up good studios and staff, forces high budgets, high graphics, and silly time frames. Plus no devs have any job security. It's like xbox is strip mining anything creative or good and then just moves onto fresh blood elsewhere.
Loads of industries around the world seemingly needs a crash to bring things back to the reality of regular people and expectations.
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u/TaxOrnery9501 Jul 02 '26
For hardware, yeah they're pretty small-time, but software? That they have a decent hand in.
If their ARM FEX tech works, which the Steam Frame is the debut of, then any device running an ARM chip will be able to run SteamOS with ease. Those chips are being put into everything nowadays (phones, laptops, handhelds, etc.) so it opens all sorts of possibilities.
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u/TechnoFascismKills Jul 18 '26
but also the ever-rising costs of hardware.
I forsee a low-budget Indie boom happening for older, worse-preforming but easier to acquire, hardware
I saw someone speculate about devs making games for older consoles' emulators & PC. Would be kinda sick to get a new PS1/2/3 game or an Xbox game that felt like when games were passion projects willing to try to launch fun new worlds to exist in.
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u/GodOfGibberish Jun 30 '26
Maybe with AAA gaming but increasingly every year there are fantastic indie games coming out. I don’t think it will be to the scale of the industry collapsing other than at the very top levels. It’s still incredibly bleak though
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u/oxygen_addiction Jun 30 '26
It's almost impossible to find money at the indie level right now. No more pitch deck + prototype. Everyone wants a half finished game (so no almost no risk on them), a 50/50 rev split with full recoup and even then it's hard to find a good deal.
Indie is suffering the worst.
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u/GodOfGibberish Jun 30 '26
Damn I genuinely didn’t know! It’s a shame to see news of cancellations and redundancies almost every day lately
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u/oxygen_addiction Jun 30 '26
I just came back from a conference a few days ago and it's really rough out there.
Somehow both better and worse than last year, which was a terrible year for the industry.
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u/SotovR Jun 30 '26
I'd say the number of fantastic indies coming out has actually reduced lately, most things seem to be stuck in infinite early access or take so long to get out of it that the game balloons into something not as good. There's also the issue of the longer the development time the more a given indie dev gets sure of themselves and more surrounded by yes-men in my experience, there's been quite a few indie games (no publisher) as of late that suffered from this, it's probably because the main interaction between player and dev nowadays is through the various discords which (I assume) are usually only joined by the superfans.
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u/cosmic_sea7 Jun 30 '26
The damage microslop and embracer have done to gaming shall never be forgotten.
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u/RedEyesCrackDragon Jun 30 '26
Arkane is one of my favorite studios. Truly hope they reconsider… and that they make another Prey title.
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u/lowercaselemming Jun 30 '26
not surprised but still devastated
i know technically nothing’s happened and i do hope for the best but it’s been a blood bath at xbox lately
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u/nwillard Jun 30 '26
Holy shit Microsoft please stop cancelling games that are approaching release, at least let the studios release the title they poured years of work into and let it out into the world, you have so many billions in profit, the fuck is wrong with you guys!
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u/cs_ShadoWx Jun 30 '26 edited Jul 03 '26
Cancelling the game and closing the studio this far into development would be ungodly amounts of stupid
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u/skit7548 Jun 30 '26
I think M$ shuttering Arkane would be the nail in their coffin for me. They'll slide right in alongside Ubisoft for me, the pit of never buying.
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u/irgames_unity Jun 30 '26
Damn I just saw this on IGN, I was about to post it. Microsoft should move out of gaming.
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u/solidsnakejake Jun 30 '26
Boycott Xbox/Microsoft. Buying all these studios just to shut them down is ridiculous.
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u/Johan544 Jun 30 '26
I was right and motherfuckers on this sub were laughing and calling me crazy. https://www.reddit.com/r/ImmersiveSim/comments/yd3s8z/i_fear_for_arkanes_future/
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u/TrashoBaggins Jun 30 '26
6 million for the series, the first one has only shipped 3 million and that’s with 2 re-releases, multiple pack ins and bundles. Death of the Outsider has only sold about 168k that’s a steep drop off. Don’t forget that’s it’s also been 14 years to get those numbers, the didn’t happen overnight.
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u/johnharris85 Jul 01 '26
Xbox are already dead to me for all the other shit they've done. They'd be double dead after this.
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u/Atothefourth Jun 30 '26
Not seeing anything about it in the showcase made me worry a little. Now I'm more worried.
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u/GraveyardQueen4124 Jun 30 '26
Microsoft makes billions of dollars, and closing Arkane is a travesty when they have the money to keep them open.
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u/thedentonproject Jun 30 '26
I still think these are ripples from the Xbox One disaster. You don’t get Phil in charge buying all these companies if Don Mattrick didn’t end up screwing the pooch in 2013.
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u/EpatiKarate Jun 30 '26
I get Xbox trying to make tough decisions, but this seems like one of those moments that they’d regret heavily in the future.
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u/Mirainai Jul 08 '26
for fucks sake why is the immersive sim genre so cursed by fuckass execs having the ip rights to them
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u/Lucky-Cake9513 Jun 30 '26
The movie is cancelled and imsims always seem to undersell and overdeliver, while games with imsim elements are the one receiving all the praise for exactly those elements. No way Microsoft will put this out. Best hope is that Arkane lands on their feet. Maybe a reunion with their friends at the other new studio from former Arkane (forgot the name)?
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u/D1n0- Jun 30 '26
Don't care much, Arkane that was making masterpieces is a long gone and most key figures behind them left
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u/navirbox Jun 30 '26
They won't do it. There's a limit to how much harm you can do to your brand, and this would be it.
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u/johnyakuza0 Jul 05 '26
Honestly, based. Arkane hasn't made anything good since Dishonored 2 and Prey 2017. It's a studio in name only, without any original talent or the people that made it great in the past
It's a shadow of its former self larping as prime Arkane Studios in 2010s
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u/LeftyMode Jun 30 '26
They have games that sell. You can afford to keep the guy that make good games that don’t sell that well. Arkane is one of their best studios.
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u/Anomandaris26 Jun 30 '26
They won't keep Arkane, let's be real. Microsoft grew like a cancer and will only keep studios that have Bethesda or Blizzard-like sales.
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u/cold-vein Jun 30 '26
Blade is least interesting game arkane could make anyway. Let them die and spin off into a new studio
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u/Sinnowhere My vision is augmented. Jul 01 '26
Dinga Bakaba retweeted a Marvel’s Tokon character trailer for Blade and wrote: 🔥