Arkane Studios

Well, think of it b- like this.

If you worked at a company called Arkane, well known for your-

Well, exactly

... uh, very creative stealth games-

We've seen companies like, you know, Harvey Smith.

Uh, he's the former Arkane Studios boss.

He opened a new studio called Black Pony immersive.

We had them on the show, and he made a point of the fact that his team are American.

And so I think what I'll be very curious to see is, you know, what is the pace at which, you know, games become more approachable to people, and what is the pace at which people kind of become more willing to go through that initial discomfort to find these new worlds that open up for them? And you know, I know there's, uh, I, I think a lot of, a lot of pessimism and, and worry right now about kind of the state of the industry.

But man, one thing I was super excited to see just the other week was, uh, the, the emergence of, uh, Black Pony Immersive with all these ex-Arkane devs, um, hopefully making the next great immersive sim for all of us.

And so seeing incredible new, you know, double-A ventures with, I think, big ambitions to create stuff that, you know, I still think is very industry and genre-defining is, is really exciting and a, and a reason to be very optimistic too about where games are still headed and what opportunities are still on the horizon.

[upbeat music]

love Dark Messiah.

That's Arkane before...

Yeah.

Yeah, so it's a Ubisoft

published game by Arkane.

And we had a session.

It was set for six people on the idea that we're all going to double box and we'll have like two other people join and then we'll have maybe enough for ten.

Uh, Harvey Smith, of course, uh, you know, was involved in the creation of games like Deus Ex and Dishonored.

We've interviewed him over the years, including our documentary on Arkane Austin before the studio was sadly shut down by our good friends over at Xbox.

Um, so, uh, yeah, check out that podcast as well.

If you're a patron, you have already got access to it, because just like, uh, this podcast, every podcast we do now on the two Patreons, you get them early if you're a $5 member, and we really appreciate it, 'cause we don't even run ads on these things, 'cause ads are lame.

Uh, this is my first time talking to Ben.

The two of them worked at Arkane Austin, uh, right up until, and as our conversation will let you know, uh, after the closure of Arkane Austin, which, you know, if you listened to the podcast or watch me tweet about things, this is, uh, y- one of the most heartbreaking closures that I witnessed over the, the past, you know, 10 years of covering, uh, video game dev stuff.

Um, really, really crazy.

So it was great to catch up with them.

We talked about their new studio.

We talked about what happened with Redfall and the closure of Arkane Austin, the Arkane game dev scene, uh, Warren Spector's retirement, which I think was announced the day before they announced this studio.

Clearly they have stolen his soul or something.

Um, and also just generally about the health of immersive sims in 2026, because over on Noclip 2, we've, you know, on the podcast, on the channel, we've covered loads of great sort of like, you know, str- strange indie interpretations of r- of im sim stuff.

Past guests include Cameron Dayton, narrative director behind Overwatch and Call of Duty.

Eduardo Gonzalez, world-building art director behind League of Legends and Arkane.

And Kay Grunewald, studio builder focused on long-term creativity.

creative sustainability.

It's a 15-minute trailer showing off some new details in the next Black Myth game.

Harvey Smith, the former Arkane developer behind Deus Ex Dishonored Prey and Redfall, is starting a new game studio, Black Pony Immersive.

It's an Austin-based developer-focused studio created on... focused on creating single-player first-person action RPGs built around player choice, exploration, and emergent systems.

Also, Warren Spector, another game designer responsible for Deus Ex and System Shock, is retiring.