Arkane Studios

Arkane Studios is a developer.

Arkane Studios Webpage, Facebook

Arkane Studios is a French development studio founded in 1999. Since 2010, Arkane Studios has been owned by the American company Zenimax Media Inc., known for The Elder Scrolls Online and also overseeing gaming giants such as Bethesda Game Studios and id Software.

The company's headquarters are located in Lyon, but from July 2006 to May 2024, the studio also had an office in Austin, Texas, USA. From its inception, Raphaël Colantonio served as the company's CEO and creative director, but in 2017, he stepped down and was replaced by Ding Bakab.

History

Humble beginnings

Arkane Studios was founded in October 1999 by developers with experience at companies such as Electronic Arts and Atari/Infogrames. A year later, while searching for a publisher, the studio released a demo version of the cRPG Arx Fatalis. JoWood Entertainment approached the studio and released the team's first game in 2002. In 2004, Arkane Studios signed a contract with Ubisoft to create a new action game set in the Might & Magic universe. The result was Dark Messiah of Might and Magic, released for PC two years later. A slightly improved version was released on Xbox 360 two years later. Despite the game's good reception, the partnership with Ubisoft was not extended.

In the following years, Arkane Studios had little luck with successful projects. The Crossing, announced in December 2006, was canceled, as was Return to Ravenholm, a spin-off of the Half-Life series, developed in collaboration with Valve. A project with the working title LMNO, developed in collaboration with Electronic Arts and co-authored by Steven Spielberg himself, also suffered the same fate. From 2008 to 2010, Arkane Studios focused on supporting other developers, co-creating projects such as the multiplayer mode in Call of Duty: World at War and animations and level design for Bioshock 2.

Acquisition by Bethesda Softworks

A turning point in Arkane's history came in August 2010, when it was acquired by Zenimax Media. Immediately afterward, the developers began work on a steampunk action game with stealth elements titled Dishonored. Released in 2012 by Bethesda Softworks, the game proved to be a resounding success, winning over 50 awards at major industry events such as E3 and Gamescom, as well as over a hundred game-of-the-year titles from media outlets worldwide. During E3 2015, it was announced that Dishonored 2 was in development, and a year later, at the same event, Arkane Studios announced Prey, a reboot of the series initiated by Human Head in 2006. However, before the last two of the above-mentioned productions were released, the first game to hit store shelves was Dishonored: Definitive Edition, a remastered, complete version of Arkane Studios' 2012 hit, prepared for PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.

Dishonored 2 debuted on PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One on November 11, 2016. The title received positive reviews, but around launch, many players complained about various technical issues (which plagued it on all platforms). The aforementioned Prey was released on May 5, 2017 (also on PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One) and, like the second installment of Corvo Attano's adventures, received high scores.

On June 12, 2017, Arkane Studios announced Dishonored: Death of the Outsider, a slightly smaller game that was intended to conclude the story initiated in the first installment. Shortly thereafter, Raphael Colantonio, the studio's founder, announced that he was leaving the company to take a break and make a change after 18 years of working in one place. Dishonored: Death of the Outsider debuted on September 18, 2017, to high reviews. On June 11, 2018, Prey received its first (and only) major expansion (titled Mooncrash).

Life after Dishonored

On the same day, Bethesda Softworks unveiled two projects from a collaboration between Arkane Studios and Machine Games. Wolfenstein: Youngblood and Wolfenstein: Cyberpilot introduced new features to the iconic shooter series. The former was designed with co-operation in mind, while the latter required virtual reality headsets. Both titles hit store shelves on July 26, 2019, and while Youngblood received a moderately warm reception from industry media, Cyberpilot received significantly worse reviews. However, players weren't impressed with the new features the developers introduced, as evidenced by the very low ratings they gave both titles on sites like Metacritic.

At E3 2019, Arkane Studios unveiled its next project: Deathloop, a first-person action game that, as it turned out a year later, was headed to PC and ninth-generation consoles. The title, which can be described as a hybrid of Dishonored series mechanics and roguelike mechanics, was initially scheduled for release in 2020, but in August, the developers announced they needed more time to refine it. The new release date was ultimately set for September 14, 2021. Meanwhile, it was revealed that Deathloop would be a timed exclusive for PlayStation 5, similar to Ghostwire: Tokyo, a game being developed at Tango Gameworks.

Acquisition by Microsoft

On September 21, 2020, Microsoft announced it had acquired ZeniMax Media and all its studios for $7.5 billion. Arkane Studios thus joined the rapidly growing Xbox Game Studios. However, the Redmond giant quickly informed players that it had no intention of interfering with existing contracts, so Deathloop's fate as a timed exclusive for PlayStation 5 was in no way in jeopardy.

Deathloop debuted on PC and PlayStation 5 in September 2021. The game was warmly received by players and industry media. Arkane Studios' work received "mostly positive" reviews on Steam, while on Metacritic its average score was 87-88/100 (depending on the platform). A year later, the game was also released on Xbox Series X/S and Xbox Game Pass.

Blood loss

Unfortunately, Redfall, Arkane Studios' next project, did not repeat this success. The open-world first-person action game, in which players took on the role of vampire hunters, was released exclusively for PC and Xbox Series X/S in May 2023. The game sold very poorly. To make matters worse, it received "mostly negative" reviews on Steam, while on Metacritic its average score was 53-56/100. Although success was far from certain, Arkane Studios wasn't giving up. After several months of silence, the studio released a major patch in October 2023 that addressed many of the game's problems. Unfortunately, the patch's release had virtually no impact on the title's popularity on Steam (which, according to SteamDB, had already begun to "scrape the bottom" in May).

In December 2023, it seemed Arkane Studios was recovering from Redfall's failure. The studio announced its next project, Marvel's Blade. Unfortunately, shortly thereafter, in May 2024, it was announced that Arkane's Austin branch had been closed; its selected employees were to join other Bethesda Softworks studios.