Redfall became one of the major failures of the Xbox in the current generation of consoles. Released in 2023, the game is Microsoft’s first, with a standard version priced at $69.99, and the project itself was riddled with problems from the start. About a year later, Microsoft shut down Arkane Austin, which was developing Redfall, but after the studio closed, the game received a 1.4 update called ReVamp. It adds an offline mode and significantly improves the game by fixing a ton of issues.
Former Arkane executives Harvey Smith and Ben Horne Game business interviewhow they released the final update after the studio closed. According to Smith, the team was almost ready for version 1.4 when the studio announced it was closing and completely downsizing. Developers asked Microsoft to allow them to release prepared fixes.
Our 1.4 version is ready. It was in it that a large number of problems were corrected. So we went to Microsoft and said, “We know we don’t work here anymore, but can we release this?” And, to their credit, they didn’t say no. They had six or seven of us sign documents so we could go back to the office. We released version 1.4 after the layoffs, and I don’t think it would have been a huge hit if we had had it from the beginning, but it was a much better game than it was at launch.
Meanwhile, Ben Horn added that this was an unusual experience in his developer career:
To me, it was like an achievement that I unlocked in my career, releasing something after I was laid off and the studio closed.
Now, Black Pony Immersive has been founded by Harvey Smith, Ben Horne and former Arkane developer Ricardo Bare. They are developing the first game, which the developers themselves say can be called with different definitions – “Action RPG, hybrid FPS and RPG, or immersive simulation game”.
