The Daily Populous Thursday June 6th, 2024 evening edition
Authored by tech4gamers.com and submitted by TheLostQuest

Story Highlight Xbox shut down many important studios during the recent restructuring, including Arkane Austin.

The team is now moving on, but it seems Xbox-owned Bethesda teams are lending a hand.

Various developers have since moved on to Bethesda Game Studios and ZeniMax Online Studios to support new and ongoing projects.

Xbox closed a major studio like Arkane Austin recently, which had very skilled workers as they had produced some exceptional single-player titles, such as Prey. Following the closure, these workers were at the threat of losing their jobs.

Fortunately, it seems the developers have received help from fellow Bethesda employees. According to reports, various Arkane Austin developers are now moving to other teams under the Bethesda Softworks umbrella.

Why it matters: It can be difficult for developers to find jobs after such devastating layoffs. This makes Bethesda’s help quite relieving.

As reported by Klobrille, Arkane Austin developers were recently hired by Bethesda Games Studios and ZeniMax Online Studios.

This helps keep the developers under the same Xbox family, merging them into the existing ecosystem. Since two of the biggest teams are hiring, it is likely that others like MachineGames and id Software also offered a helping hand.

There’s no real figure as to how many developers were hired by these teams. Still, the additional talent and creativity should help Bethesda Game Studios and ZeniMax Online Studios bolster their AAA production.

Both teams are working on new projects but supporting existing titles at the same time. As such, more manpower should prove valuable. The former is currently releasing new updates for Starfield, while the latter continues to ensure The Elder Scrolls Online thrives with new content.

We hope the developers at Tango Gameworks can find similar positions since Hi-Fi Rush was an incredible showcase of their talents last year. This may also help foster positivity among internal Xbox teams.

Bethesda Softworks has all types of ambitious games in development. The Elder Scrolls 6, Doom, Indiana Jones, and more are being worked on, so the publisher can use all the help it finds across the many studios under its umbrella.

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caninehere on June 6th, 2024 at 14:29 UTC »

Arkane Austin was seemingly a clusterfuck of bad management and poor choices. It existed for 18 years and its work output consisted of 1) support on the first Dishonored, 2) Prey, which was well-received critically but was a financial failure and 3) Redfall, which... yeah.

That doesn't mean there weren't skilled people working there or that they weren't worth keeping on, but there was no way to justify keeping the studio open. Frankly, when Microsoft bought Bethesda, if they had any idea the state Redfall was in it probably would have just been wise to close the studio immediately. Redfall reportedly had a huge budget and wasted a ton of money both before and after MS bought them. Then MS kept the studio open for another year to try and salvage it when again, the smart move probably would have just been to cut losses. And then they got PR shit for closing the studio anyway when it probably should have been shuttered years ago.

Sometimes it's better to let a bad thing die off. Arkane Austin wasn't going anywhere. Some people yelled about how MS opened a new studio pretty much at the same time as closing these ones... as if that doesn't make any sense.

Djghost1133 on June 6th, 2024 at 11:17 UTC »

That's mighty optimistic of Bethesda. They really better hope es6 does well

Jiggaboy95 on June 6th, 2024 at 09:56 UTC »

Makes sense, big companies do this all the time. Fire/make role redundant, open new role, same responsibilities but less pay, reach out to those you fired/made redundant with little warning, profit.