With an attrition rate like that, I wonder if they should go back to co-developing with Lyon for now and Dinga can take over as leader of the next project, less than 100 employees at the Austin office is crazy too, it'll be a very long time before we get another game from them unless they team up with Lyon, it might be hard to hire at Austin in the near future.
The plus side is that we shouldn't have Zenimax (twats) forcing multiplayer onto their studios now but it may be too late for Austin with that attrition rate. We still have Harvey who has proven himself but it seems like Harvey wanted to make Redfall whilst his team at large didn't, I can't help but wonder if they'll be a bit of a team morale breakdown now.
Microsoft should have became involved sooner, but I guess it would have been hard, Zenimax is telling them one thing, Harvey also wants to make the game, a lot of other employees don't, who do they listen to, either way, this ultimately starts with Zenimax and Microsoft should have been involved sooner with Arkane sooner and got a feeling of the studio morale, and helped where they could.
Also, while hands off works with some studios, in fact, I'd argue it works with most studios, as we've had multiple good-amazing titles with this "hands off approach" so if we're going to criticise it for bad stuff we need to recognise it for good stuff too. Having said that, Zenimax is TOO hands off, it's even more hands off than what they are with XGS.
Matt Booty needs to be directly involved in overseeing Zenimax because who knows where else this "multiplayer" shit has infested itself. Perhaps Microsoft should do a company wide survey to gather the general mood across Zenimax Studios and if they're happy, if they feel forced to do something they don't want to, if they've ever felt forced, etc.
I stand by that Microsoft shouldn't have cancelled it, I know for a fact if they did we'd have articles ripping them apart, announced or not, it'd be "Microsoft Acquires Bethesda Then Immediately Cancels Projects From Beloved Arkane" and the public would rip them apart just as much as they are now, if not more. In addition to that, Harvey and Ricardo actually wanting to do the game too makes things awkward.
Seems Microsoft had good intentions but there needs to be more communication between Xbox and Zenimax. Though I doubt it could have helped this specific project much, it seems it was doomed from the start due to Zenimax. Like I said, it's understandable why Xbox wouldn't cancel it and it's also understandable why they wouldn't delay it another 2-3 years if they known - The issue is, they should have known.
It's also hard if both publisher and studio management, is telling you one thing. Nobody is ever eager to walk over studio management to get to the regular everyday developers (unless it's an abuse issue), Microsoft should be able to trust management. As they could with Tango, who just released something completely new to them, completely different from their usual skillset which was amazing and with Microsoft's hands off approach.
Matt Booty or whoever definitely needs to start having their eyes on Zenimax though and look into the general feeling of Zenimax Studios. One thing that Xbox could have actually helped with is the understaffed aspect, another thing they could have helped with is providing technical support earlier, but the awkwardness is that Harvey/Ricard wanted to do Redfall but other employees didn't so I don't know what the solution is there.
Besides...We don't know how many of this 70% left before Microsoft even got involved so it may have been too late anyway to save the employees.
Last edited by Ryuu96 - on 01 June 2023
