Prey and Redfall developer Arkane Austin became a casualty of a particularly brutal year of layoffs and studio closures, as one of four studios Microsoft closed down in May this year. Arkane founder Raphael Colantonio has said he was saddened by the closure--but he doesn't think the studio's unique brand of immersive sim is going anywhere.
"It's sad, of course," Colantonio said in an interview with PC Gamer. "I wanted to see our game going forever, for obvious reasons. But the company is [gone], but not the people. The people survive."
The Arkane founder discussed the history of the company and the genre itself, pointing to Looking Glass Studios, which he described as "the originator of the immersive sim." Despite shuttering in 2000, Looking Glass released a number of influential games including System Shock and Thief, and eventually inspired the founding of Arkane, which also employed a number of ex-Looking Glass developers.
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