# Arkane's imsim masters got handed a live service game

> Harvey Smith on why Redfall broke, and what the Arkane Austin team is doing next.
- Title: Arkane's imsim masters got handed a live service game
- Summary: Harvey Smith on why Redfall broke, and what the Arkane Austin team is doing next. Redfall failed less on execution than on fit: immersive sim specialists…
- Keywords: redfall, arkane, game development, harvey smith, live service, Arkane's, imsim, masters, got, handed, live, service
- Source: PC Gamer — https://pcgamer.com/games/fps/redfall-co-director-harvey-smith-thinks-arkane-never-should-have-been-working-on-a-games-as-a-service-game
- Published: 2026-09-14T15:40:03+00:00
- Read time: 1 min
- Topics: redfall, arkane, game development, harvey smith, live service
## He says it plainly
Harvey Smith, former creative director at Arkane Austin and now CEO of Black Pony Immersive, says Redfall was a mistake from the premise up.

> we never should have been working on a games-as-a-service game
## Wrong team, wrong game
The people who built some of the best immersive sims ever made spent years on a vampire-themed open-world multiplayer shooter. It landed badly.
## The studio paid for it
A year after release, Microsoft shut down Arkane Austin. Nearly 100 people lost their jobs while the team was still trying to fix the game.
## Laid off, then back to finish
The developers begged Microsoft to let them return and ship update 1.4. It worked. Former staff came back briefly and completed the final patch.
## One piece of it mattered
Smith points to a section co-director Ricardo Bare wrote for someone he loves, about community and what separates a human from a vampire.

> what separates a human from a vampire in the metaphorical sense
## Caught in the console war
A PS5 version was planned, then cancelled after Microsoft bought Bethesda. The bad reviews became ammunition for Sony fans arguing Xbox was failing.
## Everything hit at once
Executive producer Ben Horne lists the $70 price and a performance mode held back to smooth out framerate dips, which turned into a 60 FPS scandal at launch.

> there were many things that seemed to converge all at once
## Back to what they know
Horne calls the core problem working outside the team's expertise. Black Pony hasn't shown its first game, but it will be an immersive sim.

> Getting back to what we do best was the number one priority
## Key takeaway

Redfall failed less on execution than on fit: immersive sim specialists were assigned a genre nobody on the team knew.