Recently, Redfall director Harvey Smith spoke with TheGameBusiness about the reasons behind the game's failure and the eventual closure of Arkane Austin.
Harvey Smith admitted that at the time, the industry was swept up in the games-as-a-service trend. The team was carried along by this wave, mistakenly believing they could combine Arkane's signature immersive sim design with the service-based model. Midway through development, the project faced additional challenges due to the pandemic, which forced everyone to work remotely, compounded by widespread layoffs across the industry that led to significant staff turnover.
After its release, Redfall suffered from both poor reviews and low sales. Despite this, the team spent a full year fixing thousands of bugs. Even after some team members were laid off, they continued to advocate to Microsoft, completing and releasing the major 1.4 update patch after their departure. Harvey Smith believes that if version 1.4 had been available at launch, the game's situation would have improved significantly, although achieving massive success would still have been difficult.
Now, Harvey Smith has partnered with his longtime colleague to establish a new studio, Black Pony Interactive. Learning from past mistakes, they are returning to their strength in single-player immersive sim games and avoiding the live-service sector altogether.