Microsoft‘s entry may be changing things behind the scenes.

Microsoft has outright acquired Zenimax Media, meaning Bethesda, all its dev teams, and the IPs the company has are now belonging to Xbox. With this move, Arkane Studios is also „X,” even if Bethesda is confirmed to be somewhat independent (we’ll discuss this in detail later today), and they will continue to be a publisher (something that even Double Fine was doing after the Microsoft acquisition, although they are much smaller).

The studio might be known for many games: Dishonored, Prey (2017), Dark Messiah of Might and Magic, Arx Fatalis – and now they are working on Deathloop, which remains a timed PlayStation 5-exclusive. Now they have a few job openings – for example, their Austin studio is looking for a character animation engineer and a graphics engineer, and their Lyon studio is looking for an engine programmer. A server engineer position requires „extensive experience developing online games,” as well as handling potential live service troubles. The graphics engineer has to know Unreal Engine 4 (which is intriguing: their last game using UE was Dishonored in 2012, and that was on Unreal Engine 3; Prey 2017 used CryEngine, and Dishonored 2 used a proprietary engine based on id Tech 5).

The two studios are likely not working on the same game, and thus, we suspect that Arkane is working on two games at the same time beyond Deathloop, and one of them could bring significant changes for them if they do end up with a live service, online title. Arkane Austin hasn’t released a game in three years (their last game happens to be Prey 2017). A new IP isn’t out of the question either.

Don’t immediately expect these new games to show up on the PlayStation 5 – Microsoft might want to gain more market share, and we wouldn’t even rule them out acquiring SEGA. After Bethesda, nothing would surprise us.

Source: PSL

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