Arkane Studios’ development team in Austin, Texas is reportedly working on a brand new single-player action RPG.
According to a job listing for the position of Lead Technical Engineer at Arkane Austin, it appears that the development team is going back to its roots by working on a single-player action RPG with immersive sim elements.
As highlighted above, among the preferred skills that have been listed for the position of Lead Technical Engineer at Arkane Austin, it is stated that candidates should be able to demonstrate familiarity with single player action RPGs and immersive sims, suggesting that the studio has begun work on its next project. That’s not to say, however, that the game will be devoid of any online functionality. One of the other preferred skills listed by the studio states that candidates should ideally have experience with network and online features.
Other preferred skills for this job opening include familiarity with graphics engineering, global lighting methods, dynamic lighting, shadow rendering and similar concepts and experience with real-time concurrent systems.
Arkane Austin’s previous game, Redfall, made a swift exit from the top 50 most played games list on Xbox in less than a month. The most played games list featured on the Xbox store no longer lists Redfall, suggesting that the game’s player base saw a steady decline since launch. An unfavorable verdict from critics, bugs, performance issues, and negative word of mouth from players are the likely reasons behind the poor reception.
A drop in player base this quick is rather unprecedented for a first-party title from Microsoft. Though, it’s worth mentioning that Redfall had already been in development prior to the console maker acquiring Bethesda, and there had also been a PS5 version at one point. The game’s creative direction, Harvey Smith, revealed during a pre-launch Redfall preview session that one notable consequence of Microsoft’s acquisition of Bethesda in 2021 was the immediate cancellation of the PS5 version, right in the middle of the game’s development.
