Xbox Is Shutting Down Four Studios Including Arkane Austin And Tango Gameworks

Xbox is shutting down four of its studios, including Redfall developer Arkane Austin and Ghostwire: Tokyo developer Tango Gameworks.

As shared by IGN, Xbox executive Matt Booty sent out a company-wide email detailing upcoming studio layoffs. "These changes are not a reflection of the creativity and skill of the talented individuals at these teams or the risks they took to try new things," said Booty in the email. "I acknowledge that these changes are also disruptive to the various support teams across ZeniMax and Bethesda that bring our games to market. We are making these tough decisions to create capacity to increase investment in other parts of our portfolio and focus on our priority games."

Arkane Austin will be closing and Redfall's most recent update will be the last one ever for the game as its development comes to a close. Booty said that the servers will remain online, and Arkane Austin confirmed that those who purchased the premium editions of the game will be eligible to receive credit.

Tango Gameworks is closing as well, which the studio has confirmed on Twitter. Hi-Fi Rush will still be available for purchase, and presumably, its other titles such as The Evil Within and Ghostwire: Tokyo, will still be available too.

The two other studios impacted are Alpha Dog Games and Roundhouse Games. The former is a mobile game developer most known for Mighty Doom, and the latter studio was founded in 2019 after the closure of Human Head Studios. Roundhouse will also merge with Zenimax Online Studios.

Arkane Austin has been relatively silent since the release of Redfall. Last week marked the one-year anniversary of Redfall's launch and fans noticed that its promised DLC characters hadn't been released yet. This round of layoffs comes shortly after Xbox already laid off 1900 jobs back in January.