Xbox |OT|

[Ryuu96]

Machiavellian said:

Ryuu96 said:

This is what I was talking about: Deathloop Was Born Out of Bethesda’s Uncertainty Over Dishonored 3, Says Arkane Founder | VGC

“Bethesda wanted us to do something,” he said. “They didn’t quite know where we were going after Dishonored. ‘Do we want Dishonored 3? I don’t know, let’s make something simple and short before, and let’s see.’”

“And then [Deathloop] became a big thing, over the years,” he said. “That was the funny thing: ‘Nah, we don’t wanna do Dishonored 3, but if you can pitch us a small game, something that maybe has multiplayer so we can learn multiplayer, something that maybe has microtransactions, maybe something with a lot of recycling, like a roguelike.’”

After Prey flopped, I wouldn't be surprised if Bethesda told Austin to the do the same thing.

Stop making your single-player focused studios make multiplayer-focused titles...Hope this is the end of this under Xbox and Bethesda goes back to fully single-player focused aside from the MMOs...Don't even need Doom to have Multiplayer either, that is horrible as well.

My biggest concern now would be if anyone leaves Arkane Austin after working 5 years on a project only for it to flop both commercially and critically, if Harvey Smith ends up leaving then I would bring Arkane Lyon and Austin back together rather than the split approach they have.

If the games are not performing then something will have to give.  Not sure going MP if the team does not have experience there but when a team underperforms then a shakeup will eventually happen.

I mean, if we're talking Prey specifically, the marketing was largely to blame for that one, took an IP which like 90% of people didn't even know existed but used its name anyway for branding reasons (Lol) which didn't mean a thing because barely anyone even knew what Prey was and those few that actually did were like "Wtf, this isn't Prey, it's nothing like Prey" and set the negative tone from the start of its reveal to its reviews.

Course when people actually played the game, the vast majority say it's underrated and a great title, aside from the dumb naming situation.

But Arkane titles in general are hard sells, hard to market and more niche immersive sims but Bethesda should have known that pushing multiplayer onto a singleplayer studio would end in failure after Fallout 76 and Wolfenstein Youngblood. Ironically Youngflood bombed even harder than Wolfenstein II.

Bethesda corporate often sucks though, from their aggressive lawsuits to chasing after live-service cash cows which have mostly failed and hurt their brilliant studios, at least under Xbox they should chill now with being desperate for a big multiplayer hit, sales less important under the Xbox umbrella and Arkane can go back to doing what they do best, MachineGames is already there with Indiana Jones after the awful Wolfenstein Co-op title.