The closure of Arkane Austin earlier this year was a very unfortunate surprise, felt painfully by fans of the immersive sim genre. But in a new interview with PC Gamer, Arkane founder Rafael Colantonio, who left the company in 2017, said that while the closure is sad, it is also an opportunity to revamp the genre.

"Of course it's sad," Colantonio said. 'They still had a lot of friends and I wanted to see our game go on forever, for obvious reasons. But the company [is gone], but not the people. People survive."

Colantonio cited Looking Glass Studios, which he described as "the originator of the immersive sim," and which, before closing in 2000, released Ultima Underworld (as Blue Sky Productions), System Shock, Thief and "Thief" before it closed in 2000. Looking Glass helped found Arkane, and some of its employees eventually joined the studio.

Black Isle Studios is another example: its closure in 2003 was a sad loss, but "it's still going. We still remember Black Isle as a great company in its genre.

He also noted that Arkane is still in Lyon and people like himself, Harvey Smith, and Ricardo Bare are still on the scene. Colantonio founded WolfEye Studios in 2019 and returned to the immersive sim genre with the small-scale 2022 production Weird West, which did very well.

"We're doing more with WolfEye," Colantonio said. And we're doing more with WolfEye," Colantonio said. And I think the spirit of immersive sims is something that sometimes needs to happen. Sometimes you need renewal, you need a new impulse. And I think that will create more small immersive sim game companies. So while it's a sad event [Arkane Austin's closure], I don't think it means that immersive sims are going away." [Colantonio does not think the closing of Arkane Austin is a good thing. He wasn't surprised that Microsoft bought Bethesda, Arkane's parent company, in 2021, but in hindsight he doesn't think it was a good thing.

"I think it was a good move for a lot of people," he said. 'But those are the rules. When you sell to one of those huge, huge corporations, you usually end up with a lot of money. So there were a lot of people who got a lot of money. And at this point, we give them the keys. That's part of the deal."

WolfEye Studios is working on a brand new "first-person action RPG" that seems to be returning to Arkane's roots. No title has been given yet, but Colantonio recently explained that structurally it's a mix of Fallout: New Vegas, Dishonored and Prey. I'm already reaching for my wallet.