Friday, October 23rd 2026
Xbox Reset Lines Up Arkane Lyon for Closure by Mid-November if No Buyer Is Found
Earlier in 2026, when Microsoft announced the Xbox Reset that saw 1,600 employees lose their jobs immediately, with 1,600 more on the chopping block for later, and several game studios either cut loose or shut-down entirely, Arkane Lyon was mentioned as one of the studios at risk of closure. Now, according to a report by Le Monde, it seems as though the Dishonored and Deathloop studio has until November 13 to find a buyer before Microsoft will officially shut it down. Arkane has already been forced to cancel the Blade game it was working on, as a result of the recent layoffs, and if no agreement is reached before the projected date, 217 jobs are at risk.
According to a French union delegate representing employees at the studio, the search for a buyer has not gone well. French businesses with more than 1,000 employees are legally mandated to look for a buyer for any business they wish to close for at least three months, and that obligatory search ends on November 13. The union says it has asked for an extension on that deadline and in order to buy more time in the negotiations over the employee redundancy plan, in the hopes that the studio and its workers would be saved, although the negotiations with Microsoft have not gone well.
Microsoft declined to go into detail, but it issued a statement to Le Monde, stating that:
Sources:
Le Monde, via Insider Gaming
According to a French union delegate representing employees at the studio, the search for a buyer has not gone well. French businesses with more than 1,000 employees are legally mandated to look for a buyer for any business they wish to close for at least three months, and that obligatory search ends on November 13. The union says it has asked for an extension on that deadline and in order to buy more time in the negotiations over the employee redundancy plan, in the hopes that the studio and its workers would be saved, although the negotiations with Microsoft have not gone well.
We continue to explore various options for Arkane as part of the ongoing French consultation process. We are keeping the Social and Economic Committee and our employees informed, and we are actively seeking a partner to support the next phase of development and enable the commercial release of the project.
9 Comments on Xbox Reset Lines Up Arkane Lyon for Closure by Mid-November if No Buyer Is Found
It seems like bad business but perhaps I am too simple.
edit: Dishonored was such a great game, one of the my all time favs. also, played so well on Steam Deck, prob my fav Deck game.
The reason is pretty simple, they have made nothing of value, their last "hit" game was back in 2021
Redfall was a flop
so, in a nutshell, make crap, get canned
Blade was supposed to have launched in 2026, but, obviously, MS thought it was crap as well, so, they cut them
This whole thing started way back, when MS and Sony were running around and buying things left & right, when they shouldn't have done that, they got a blank check and there was no good oversight on if the studios could still produce AAA games
Most of the old guard left those companies and the people in charge left didn't have the needed vision to make AAA games
and before people say that Dishonored was good, and that would be correct, but, for whatever reason, they couldn't replicate the success, and that was more of a suit thing, than anything else, and when Arkane Austin closed, lots of those guys left
It's really not very complicated. Microsoft bought a ton of studios thinking that software was the future, that the xbox consoles could be phased out and they could dominate software publishing instead. Unfortunately for them (and fortunately for us) they figured out the hard way that gaming studios, despite the demands of gamers anywhere, cannot actually be run by gamers. You need someone to crack the whip occasionally and keep things moving. Left to their own devices, game studios burn tremendous amounts of money and produce little to nothing of value. So after funding these studios for a generation+ they have brought in a new CEO who wont accept constant losses, and if these studios have nothing to show, down comes the axe.This is Arkane Lyon, not just Arkane. The Arkane that made Redfall, Arkane Austin, is already gone.
Lyon's first major notable title, and first independently developed title, was Dishonored 2, which was OK but not as good as the first game. After that they made Wolfenstein Young Blook (a bomb), Wolfenstein Cyberpilot (which nobody played, bombed) and Deathloop, which was, you guessed it, a major bomb that hit "5 million players" but no word on final sales. Hmmmmmm.....
I'm gonna say it: controversial opinion time! Arkane Lyon never made a good game! Yes I am including Dishonored 2 in that. A decade on the market and all they made was slop.
I think there is a clusterfuck combo going on in corporate where the 'run by gamers' mentality gets massively handicapped by corporate 'thou shall do this' crap. We know of a few that have passed us by in the last decade and a half, too. From elaborate DLC and MTX schemes, lootboxes, pay to win, cosmetics-oriented shop content... none of this has fuck all to do with gaming and not a gamer in the world would make that up on his own.
It doesn't make a sliver of sense that Microsoft for its size and age cannot put together well managed projects though, or, has no metrics in place to keep studios in check. Call it what you want... but that is gross incompetence, especially in a bean counter driven company.
Managing a project is quite hard and games are a many headed beast in that sense. Do you have enough substance? Not too much so you'll never complete the product? What is the post release plan? What funds the continued existence/dev? etc. We have numerous examples of projects that suffer from bad management choices, the most visible ones being Cyberpunk 2077 and Star Citizen. They both show us the impact of poor project management, in different ways. CDPR did the necessary repairs forced by reality but still only has a shell of what it planned before. RSI never will because there is no reality, only new money pits people sink $$ into.