With Bethesda now officially a part of Microsoft, Xbox has suddenly added a bunch of incredibly talented studios to its first party portfolio, and one of the most exciting among those is Arkane. The studio behind the likes of Dishonored and Prey, Arkane’s teams have consistently put out excellent games built on unique ideas that are executed with near-perfection, and the prospect of seeing more of these on Xbox in the future is an exciting one.
Of course, as it the case with all Bethesda studios (and really, any Microsoft first party studio), Arkane’s primary goal moving forward is going to be to provide compelling new content for Xbox Game Pass subscribers, and the studio itself is quite excited about that. Speaking recently with Press Start, Dinga Bakaba – director of the upcoming Deathloop – said that being part of the Game Pass ecosystem will allow Arkane to remain creative and keep making the kind of games they like making.
“Being able to be apart of the Xbox Game Pass ecosystem makes things a bit different for us, because we can occupy a space in that service, and we will continue to make the kind of games that we make and make them well,” he said. “If you’ve looked on social media, you’ll see that games like Prey and Dishonored 1 and 2 coming to Xbox Game Pass, a lot of people are saying that you need to play these games and have no excuse not to, so it’s been very encouraging.”
“It’s a service that will allow us to remain creative and have the audience and build that relationship over time and that’s really exciting.”
Microsoft has often spoke about wanting to let its studios remain creatively independent, which, under the right circumstances, should mean that Arkane will continue to release exciting new games in the future. We’ve also heard about how the development of major first party releases such as Microsoft Flight Simulator, Tell Me Why, Gears Tactics, and Bleeding Edge has been affected by Game Pass for the better, so it should be interesting to see how Arkane is impacted going forward as well.
Arkane’s Deathloop will launch for PS5 and PC on May 21. The studio is also working on a couple of new unannounced games, one of which seems to be a new fantasy IP.
