Arkane Austin isn't shutting down despite Redfall's poor performance

Arkane Austin became a part of the Xbox Game Studios umbrella when Microsoft acquired its parent company ZeniMax Media in 2021. Redfall was already in development when the acquisition was finalized, making it difficult for Microsoft to give guidance for its vision of the game.

The studio had a stellar track record before releasing Redfall. The studio is best known for its work on the Dishonored series, the Wolfenstein spin-offs, and Deathloop. Many fans were on board with Redfall leading up to launch based on this pedigree alone, which made the poor launch even more surprising.

Arkane also developed Prey, which became controversial because was envisioned as a spiritual successor to System Shock rather than the 2006 game released by Human Head Studios. Bethesda reportedly forced the studio to use the title as it owns the IP.

Booty also shared that he felt partly responsible for the failure of Redfall as he didn't properly set the expectations for the title. "I feel accountable that we could have done a better job with Arkane," he said.

However, the Xbox Game Studios chief is still seeing positives with Redfall and thinks that the game isn't doing as badly as many assume. He shared that the game is getting "good play" on Xbox Game Pass. "It was a miss, but how much of a miss?" he asks.

There were reports earlier this month that painted a chaotic development for Redfall. The developers even thought that the game would be canceled while others didn't want to work on the title. Redfall reportedly lacked a clear direction with caused its downfall.

Will Redfall be one of those comeback stories like Battlefield 2042, Cyberpunk 2077, or even No Man's Sky? We will know the answer in about a year. Redfall is available exclusively on PC and Xbox Series X/S.