Arkane Lyon, the studio behind the Dishonored franchise and which is currently developing Marvel’s Blade, are looking for a buyer for the studio to keep Microsoft from shutting the studio down. The reason for the closure is that Microsoft claims the studio isn’t profitable and they can’t afford to keep it open. Something that the studio and, in particular, its union have said is not only untrue, but distorts reality to suit its narrative. The problem is that Microsoft have been sabotaging them.
Microsoft has set Arkane up to fail
According to the French union Le Syndicat des Travailleureuses du Jeu Vidéo in its statements on the matter, Marvel’s Blade is going well and the game will live up to Arkane Lyon’s previous work. But most importantly, they accuse Xbox of having placed impossible demands on the studio, setting it up to fail, freezing hiring and depriving them of the resources they need to operate normally.
In the workers’ words, “Microsoft has chosen to justify the closure on economic grounds, but Microsoft is the reason those economic issues exist in the first place”. They say they have frozen hiring “for 19 months, which has caused delays and additional costs”. They also point out that “even this closure itself goes against any financial logic, since closing Arkane today could probably be more expensive than finishing the game”.
The workers only want a solid offer from Microsoft and to have a future beyond Xbox. With French law on their side, they have the upper hand: Europe is much more protective than the US in this regard. And there are currently as many as three possible buyers for the studio, in addition to the possibility that the studio might buy itself back from Microsoft. So, although they only have until next December 13, it seems that at Arkane Lyon it seems they have a real chance of not having to shut down.
