Legendary game designer Harvey Smith has said he pleaded with Microsoft to let his team release one final patch to improve the poorly-received Xbox console exclusive Redfall — even though he had been “fired.”
First-person vampire shooter Redfall launched to negative reviews in 2023, and proved to be the final project for Arkane Austin, the Texas-based team behind 2017’s Prey, which also worked on Dishonored and its sequel.
Smith, who served as lead game designer on 2000’s Deus Ex, then creative director of Dishonored and Dishonored 2, found himself out of work in May 2024 when it was announced that Arkane Austin would be shut down, with ongoing work on Redfall’s post-launch roadmap canned as a result.
But the studio had been hard at work on another patch for the game, version 1.4, which would address numerous player issues and bugbears. Speaking to The Game Business, Smith revealed for the first time that he had to negotiate with Microsoft to be let back into the office to ensure this patch saw the light of day.
“We finished the game and it was very poorly received,” Smith recalled. “We then worked on it for a year. We patched thousands of bugs. We then got laid off, but we had in the pipe version 1.4. It was the one that fixed tons of stuff. So, we went to Microsoft and said, ‘I know we don’t work here anymore, but can we please release this?’ And to their credit, they did not say no.
“They let six or seven of us sign forms that we could come back in the building. After being fired, we released 1.4, which I think if we had that on day one, it wouldn’t have set the world on fire, but it was a much, much better game.”
Redfall was a distinct departure from the immersive sims that Arkane was known for, cooked up during the heady days of the games industry’s push for live-service elements. (It’s a push that we’re still seeing the effects of now, as Sony reportedly reboots its Horizon multiplayer game following negative feedback.)
“That was a difficult project,” Smith concluded, discussing Redfall in general. “Arkane is very specialized, but the industry is growing, and there’s always more mouths to feed. And it’s great when you can reach a wider audience. We got swept up in the games-as-a-service thing, and I had the foolish chutzpah to assume that it always works out for us. We can do this. Let’s take what we love, and mix it with [games-as-a-service]. And do different mechanics by day and night. And have character classes. Then in the middle of all that, COVID happened.”
Two years on, the fate of another Arkane development studio now also hangs in the balance. Arkane Lyon, which is currently building Marvel’s Blade, is now in the process of being sold as part of the Xbox “reset” — though exactly what will happen to the team and it’s project still remains to be seen.
As for Smith himself, IGN has just reported on the reveal of his new game development studio, Black Pony Immersive. The fledgling team, backed by other former Arkane talent, will once again focus on the immersive sim genre that Smith helped pioneer.
Tom Phillips is IGN’s News Editor. You can reach Tom at [email protected] or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social
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