Harvey Smith On Arkane’s End And The Long Shadow Of Redfall

The Redfall launch continues to shape how Arkane Austin’s final chapter is understood, more than a year after Microsoft shut the studio down. Speaking recently, longtime designer Harvey Smith described the closure as a shock, not only because of Arkane’s history but because of the timing and the people most affected by it. His remarks add context to a studio that moved from acclaimed single-player work to a troubled live-service experiment, then disappeared.

Smith’s career at Arkane stretched back to 2008, after earlier work on Deus Ex. At Arkane, he became one of the creative leads behind Dishonored and later worked on Dishonored 2 and Prey, games that built the studio’s reputation for systemic design and authored worlds. Redfall marked a departure. Conceived as a cooperative, live-service shooter, it entered development amid broader industry pressure to chase long-term engagement models. The project also unfolded during the pandemic, complicating production and testing.

When Microsoft closed Arkane Austin in May 2024, the decision followed months of criticism around Redfall’s poor sales and technical issues. On the My Perfect Console podcast, Smith said the outcome was not something he supported, given the studio’s track record and what was still in development. He framed the decision as part of larger corporate realities, but said it remained difficult to accept.

“Every company makes the decisions they make for the reason they make them,” Smith said. “I don’t agree with them often, but the main shock there was this studio made Dishonored, along with the Lyon studio, and then they made Prey. Then we were working on Redfall for a number of years during the pandemic and everything else. The industry exploring games-as-a-service games… It is what it is. Creative efforts are unpredictable.”

Smith said the closure hit newer developers hardest. Many had joined Arkane for Redfall as their first major project, entering the industry during a period of instability and widespread layoffs. For them, the experience carried a different weight than it did for veterans who had already weathered cancelled projects and studio shakeups.

“It was a shock at first, but who I really felt for were the people who were new, this was their first project or they’d only been in the industry for a while.”— Harvey Smith

He acknowledged that his own position softened the personal impact. After decades in game development, Smith had lived through projects that never shipped and studios that pivoted or stalled. He contrasted that with junior staff losing their footing just as they were learning how large productions work. Developing a game at Arkane, he said, had been a formative experience, one that ended abruptly.

Smith maintained that he believed in Arkane Austin’s future at the time of the shutdown. He said the team was still working on ideas he considered promising and felt the studio could have recovered with time.

“It was a shock,” he said. “It was not a decision I agreed with. I did believe very much in the future of the studio, we were working on something super cool.”— Harvey Smith

After the closure announcement, Arkane Austin released the 1.4 update for Redfall, its final patch. Smith described it as a substantial improvement that brought the game closer to its original vision. He suggested that an earlier version of that update, paired with continued support, could have changed the game’s trajectory.

“If we had launched with that and then built from there it might have been a different story,” he said, adding that the update allowed the team to get “as close as we could” to the intended experience.— Harvey Smith

Smith also addressed the role of online reaction in Redfall’s reception. He described social media feedback as unusually harsh compared to responses faced by artists in other fields. According to him, even well-received games attract hostility, and flops magnify it.

“I feel like video game developers get it worse,” he said. “You release your game, it took years to get there… Even if they love it, there’s a social media caustic, acidic vitriol that gets thrown at you.”— Harvey Smith

The comments echo statements made shortly after release by Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer, who publicly acknowledged the failure of the launch.

“We let a lot of people down this week,” Spencer said at the time.

Together, those reflections frame Redfall not just as a misstep, but as a case study in how shifting market expectations, public reaction, and corporate strategy can converge, with lasting consequences for the people building the games.