Over a year after Krafton had announced its acquisition of developer Tango Gameworks as well as the IP for rhythm-based action game Hi-Fi Rush, the company has now announced that it has fully taken over the publishing and support duties for the title. While this doesn’t mean much for the game itself, players will find the name of the publisher across various online storefronts to mention Krafton as the publisher rather than Bethesda.
In its announcement, Krafton has noted that Hi-Fi Rush will get updates to reflect this change in the game itself, likely replacing Bethesda’s logo at the beginning with Krafton’s. This update is slated to happen on December 4, and the company has said that it will bring no other changes to the core gameplay of Hi-Fi Rush.
Along with this, the Bethesda.net connection feature of Hi-Fi Rush will also be disabled from now until the release of the update. This means that players might encounter strange error messages when they try to play the title. However, players don’t have to worry about anything affecting their save data, game progress, achievements, or any other player information.
“Other unexpected issues may also occur during this period,” explained the company in its announcement. “We kindly ask for your understanding, and if you encounter any problems, please contact Krafton Customer Support for prompt assistance.”
Krafton had announced its acquisition of the Hi-Fi Rush IP along with its developer back in August 2024. The announcement came in light of Microsoft officially shutting the studio down as part of a larger set of lay-offs and studio closures, which also affected Arkane Austin, Alpha Dog Studios and Roundhouse Games.
“As part of this strategic agreement, Krafton intends to collaborate with Xbox and ZeniMax to ensure a smooth transition and maintain continuity at Tango Gameworks, allowing the talented team to continue developing the Hi-Fi Rush IP and explore future projects,” said Krafton when it first announced the acquisition. “Krafton intends to support the Tango Gameworks team to continue its commitment to innovation and delivering fresh and exciting experiences for fans.”
Shortly after this announcement, Krafton also confirmed that other Tango Gameworks-developed IPs like Ghostwire: Tokyo and The Evil Within were not part of the acquisition. Rather, the rights to both titles remain under the ownership of Microsoft.
In the meantime, there have also been rumours about a potential sequel to Hi-Fi Rush. Krafton’s head of corporate development Maria Park had already confirmed that this sequel was in the works. She also noted that the sequel would offer “more dynamic” environments that give players more freedom thanks to “a more open world type of experience.”
Earlier this year, Tango Gameworks had also announced that it had opened up its new offices, as well as the fact that it was actively hiring more developers to work on a brand new game. While no details about this game were revealed, the developer confirmed that it was an “unannounced action game”. The new incarnation of the studio has has quite a few of the developers associated with it before Microsoft shut it down, including Jon Johanas, Masaaki Yamada, Kazuaki Egashira and Yosuke Ishikawa.
