{"id":916855,"date":"2026-07-06T18:21:13","date_gmt":"2026-07-06T18:21:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/916855\/"},"modified":"2026-07-06T18:21:13","modified_gmt":"2026-07-06T18:21:13","slug":"founder-asks-how-much-as-xbox-looks-to-cut-arkane-loose","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/916855\/","title":{"rendered":"Founder Asks ‘How Much’ As Xbox Looks To Cut Arkane Loose"},"content":{"rendered":"

Xbox\u2019s latest day of reckoning is here and it\u2019s grim<\/a>, but the future for beloved immersive sim maker Arkane Lyon is still unclear. Negotiations are currently underway with the French studio\u2019s worker council to hash out the details of a possible closure or sale. Amidst the bleak outlook, including for Arkane\u2019s upcoming action game, Marvel\u2019s Blade, the studio\u2019s founder has asked Xbox\u2019s CEO a simple question: \u201chow much?\u201d<\/p>\n

That was Raphael Colantonio\u2019s response to Asha Sharma\u2019s layoff memo today<\/a> on social media. \u201cRegarding Arkane\u2026 how much? I\u2019m asking for a friend,\u201d he wrote<\/a> alongside a joking face emoji. Colantonio founded Arkane Lyon back in 1999, co-directed Dishonored with Harvey Smith and directed Prey, and left the studio in 2017. He\u2019s since formed a new game company called WolfEye Studios, released a new immersive sim called Weird West in 2022<\/a>, and is now working on a second game.<\/p>\n

If Colantonio was a serious buyer, or knew investors who were, a deal probably would have been hashed out already behind closed doors rather than on X. But given how online Xbox\u2019s current leadership is, well, stranger things could happen.<\/p>\n

\n

Regarding Arkane\u2026 how much? I\u2019m asking for a friend \ud83d\ude1d<\/p>\n

\u2014 Raphael Colantonio (@rafcolantonio) July 6, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Marvel\u2019s Blade was announced back in 2023 and hasn\u2019t been seen since. When it was absent from the Xbox summer showcase in June, chief content officer Matt Booty suggested<\/a> it could pop up at a later showcase instead. We now know that if that happens, it will be because a different company has signed on to complete the comic book action game\u2019s development and ship it. The Verge reported<\/a> last week that the game has been delayed and is over budget<\/p>\n

\u201cIn France, Arkane\u2019s management is beginning required consultation with its Works Council to review potential strategic options,\u201d Sharma wrote in today\u2019s memo to staff<\/a>. That\u2019s a complex negotiation process that could take months. What awaits the team on the other side could be some layoffs and new management, or closure and cancelation. If it\u2019s the latter, Microsoft would be responsible for the unwinding of both Arkane studios it purchased as part of the Bethesda acquisition. Arkane Austin was closed in an earlier round of mass cuts back in 2024<\/a>. It\u2019s hard to quantify just what a heartbreaking waste that would be.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Xbox\u2019s latest day of reckoning is here and it\u2019s grim, but the future for beloved immersive sim maker…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":916856,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[7],"tags":[370375,10951,370376,15876,158,67,132,68,3768],"class_list":["post-916855","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-arkane","tag-blade","tag-dishonored","tag-layoffs","tag-technology","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us","tag-xbox"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116874424573867895","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/916855","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=916855"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/916855\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/916856"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=916855"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=916855"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=916855"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}