"Through the looking glass": as Arkane fight for their future, Dishonored veteran Harvey Smith reveals new studio dedicated to immersive sims

Expect "imaginative first-person enactment RPGs" with "well-realised worlds" and "expressive" systems

Days aft Deus Ex manager Warren Spector announced that helium was quitting the business, different erstwhile Ion Storm developer, Harvey Smith, has revealed Black Pony Immersive - a caller workplace dedicated to the instauration of "imaginative first-person enactment RPGs acceptable wrong well-realized worlds, wherever players make their ain memorable experiences with expressive, emergent crippled systems." The announcement features the maxim: "through the looking glass, we’re chasing a imagination of mystery, meaning, and originative play." Hey, I understood that reference! Sure sounds similar an imsim store to me.

Black Pony are based, oregon astatine least, "centralised" retired successful Austin, Texas. Smith - erstwhile originative manager for Dishonored 2 - is joined successful the cockpit by a mates of different erstwhile Arkane developers, Ben Horne and Ricardo Bare. The studio's wider workforce are located astir the United States, and see radical who've spent clip astatine Spider-Man makers Insomniac, Fortnite wranglers Epic, Just Cause inventors Avalanche, and Saints Row... bejanglers Volition.

It's a hopeful crook of events due to the fact that it wasn't agelong agone that Microsoft closed Arkane Austin, creators of the precise bully Prey 2017 and the sadly not precise bully Redfall. Nic (RPS successful peace) had thoughts. Microsoft are presently taking the axe to what's near of Arkane successful Lyon – arsenic of writing, the developers are haggling retired the presumption of their sale, closure oregon buyout with the Xbox team. Smith alludes to this successful a forgiveably buzzwordy property release.

“During a clip of manufacture volatility, I'm arrogant to denote the adjacent measurement successful my video crippled travel with the uncover of our caller studio,” helium writes. “This effort reflects everything we've learned, and each we clasp dear. My favourite gaming memories travel from seeing players attack challenges with creativity, deep-diving into our satellite building. We effort to reward players for their curiosity and exploration. At our caller studio, we're gathering precisely the benignant of single-player games we're astir passionate about.”

The developers don't person a crippled to uncover arsenic yet, but Horne notes that "this radical has worked unneurotic for years, decades successful immoderate cases, and is purpose-built to marque the ambitious games we emotion - immersive sims". We tin expect much details "soon". Dear Mr Horne: delight tin I person an immersive sim that takes spot wholly wrong the squirming, reactive innards of a precise ample whale, similar the horrible leviathans from Dishonored. We could telephone it "Jonah's Ex" oregon "The Xbox Acquisition Experience".