WolfEye's debut game Weird West attempted to pack a little of Dishonored's immersive sim sorcery into a top-down action-RPG. For the studio's next game, co-founders Raphaël Colantonio and Julien Roby are leaning into comparisons with their old endeavours at Arkane more earnestly. The new game - currently untitled and without a release date - is a first-person sci-fi RPG set in an alternate-1900s North America, which ostensibly combines the ingenuity and gadgetry of Dishonored and Prey with a "real RPG" experience redolent of Skyrim and modern-day Fallout.

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WolfEye's debut game Weird West attempted to pack a little of Dishonored's immersive sim sorcery into a top-down action-RPG. For the studio's next game, co-founders Raphaël Colantonio and Julien Roby are leaning into comparisons with their old endeavours at Arkane more earnestly. The new game - currently untitled and without a release date - is a first-person sci-fi RPG set in an alternate-1900s North America, which ostensibly combines the ingenuity and gadgetry of Dishonored and Prey with a "real RPG" experience redolent of Skyrim and modern-day Fallout.

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On Monday, co-founder of Arkane Studios and the current WolfEye Studios President revealed a smidge of what their second title will be like.

Since the release of their debut title, Weird West, in March 2022, WolfEye Studios has remained incredibly tight-lipped about their future plans. This is until Monday, when the Creative Director and President of the studio, Raphael Colantonio, let out a small tidbit about what their next game can look like. Below is an X (formerly Twitter) post from Colantonio that alludes to their next game.

Colantonio says, “Fans of the previous 1st person games I was involved with (Dishonored and Prey) will be happy.” Considering the Creative Director said specifically 1st person, it’s almost an announcement that WolfEye Studios’ next game will be from the first person POV. Although the same studio developed both titles, Dishonored and Prey featured vastly different gameplay mechanics, storyline elements, and characters and couldn’t be more different outside of the general FPS gameplay.

It’s worth mentioning that WolfEye Studios’ previous title, Weird West was from a Diablo IV-like viewpoint and featured werewolf transformations. Underneath the post, Colantonio does expand on what he meant with his comparisons to Dishonored and Prey. A fan, MonokumaGK replied to the post asking “Why you did not mention Arx Fatalis and Dark Messiah as “previous 1st person games (you) were involved with”?” Colantonio replied, “I could have mentioned them too. But only so many characters in a tweet.”

Outside of confirmation that WolfEye Studios is indeed working on a new title, Colantonio has only revealed that their next game will likely be from a first-person perspective. Fans should note that WolfEye Studios still hasn’t made any formal announcements regarding the title, so fans should take this news with a grain of salt until further information is released.

The immersive sim has seen a revival in recent years. Not only from larger studios like Arkane, keeping the faith alive with their time loops and space stations, but also from a bunch of smaller developers bravely exploring a typically ambitious genre. RPS has always had an affinity for these systemically luxuriant simulations, historically lauding the likes of the original Deus Ex as the best game ever made. But given everything that has come since, is that still the case? Only one way to find out: make a big list.

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The immersive sim has seen a revival in recent years. Not only from larger studios like Arkane, keeping the faith alive with their time loops and space stations, but also from a bunch of smaller developers bravely exploring a typically ambitious genre. RPS has always had an affinity for these systemically luxuriant simulations, historically lauding the likes of the original Deus Ex as the best game ever made. But given everything that has come since, is that still the case? Only one way to find out: make a big list.

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It's been a long time since I played the original Prey from Human Head Studios, but I still vividly remember so much of it thanks to how groundbreaking the gravity-defying, portal-hopping gameplay was at the time. There were so many mind-blowing moments as you followed protagonist Tommy Tawodi on the search for his girlfriend Jen through the gigantic and often very goopy interior of an alien space craft. The way the game played with the very concept of 3D space and even your sense of scale was epic to say the least, but how does this all transfer to VR? How does it feel to jump through portals and walk up walls when you're fully immersed in the experience?

Well, that's what I'm investigating in this week's episode of VR Corner, as I finally take Prey's flat screen to VR mod for a spin on the Quest 3. This standalone mod, which was created by a modder named Luboš who utilised some of Team Beef's VR code for Doom3Quest has been available to download on Sidequest for over a year now. Handily, it includes a free demo of the first 90 minutes of the game with the download. This means you can try it out to see if your stomach can handle all the gravity flipping action, even if you don't own the full game.

Featuring full VR controller aiming and roomscale, Prey VR runs fairly well as a standalone app on the Quest 3. As you'll see in the video however, there are a few perfomance issues here and there. Whilst rare, lower framerates are sometimes noticable when looking through large portals that appear in big rooms and, for some reason, especially when Tommy is in spirit form during the spirit-walking tutorial. Other than that there's a few minor graphical hiccups surrounding the portals themselves but it's all forgiveable when you're confronted by the majesty of the rest of the experience.

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Five of the Best is a weekly series for supporters of Eurogamer. It's a series that highlights some of the features in games that are often overlooked. It's also about having your say, so don't be shy, use the comments below and join in!

Oh and if you want to read more, you can - you can find our entire Five of the Best archive elsewhere on the site.

We're well aware of our human capabilities, so games often deliver fantasies about going beyond them. We play characters with extraordinary acrobatic abilities, or with incredible strength or martial prowess, and sometimes, we play as characters who have powers we could never have. Mixed within this is the fantasy of becoming something completely different and changing entirely from a human into something else, and that's what I want to get at here. Ever since Altered Beast, and probably for far longer, we've had games that allowed us to change shapes and access new abilities as we play. We've even had games take us to inorganic places, with mech suits and more. Shape changes can be the ultimate power-up. The question is, which are the best?

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The 360 years feel like a lifetime ago. This week, Xbox stunned the industry by announcing it had closed three studios, and repurposed a fourth into another service game support team. This follows the 1900 people laid off across Xbox at the start of this year, and those Xbox employees quietly caught up in the 10,000 layoffs Microsoft made the year before. It has been a disastrous piece of PR self-sabotage, particularly with the reputations of these studios in mind.

Arkane Austin struggled with the uncharacteristic co-op, online shooter elements of Redfall, but before that made the excellent 2017 reboot of Prey and the first, fantastic Dishonored that led to the immersive sim's modern mini-revival. Tango Gameworks, Microsoft's only Japan-based studio that was led, until earlier this year, by horror legend Shinji Mikami, made The Evil Within games and the critically acclaimed, BAFTA-winning breakout Hi-Fi Rush. Roundhouse Studios was founded by the makers of the original Prey, but is now presumably destined to make different coloured leather boots for The Elder Scrolls Online. Alpha Dog made mobile games, an area where Microsoft has been specifically looking to expand. More broadly, for two console generations now, Xbox has floundered under a clear and obvious lack of inventive, attention-grabbing exclusive games. It just bought these studios in 2021.

If it weren't for the people involved, in 2024, these closures would almost feel routine. This is far from the end of Xbox, of course - in Los Angeles next month, it'll hold yet another make-or-break press conference, that maps out yet another plan for rescuing a lost generation. But be it through exasperation or exhaustion - or the wider industry's sheer, pent-up rage - this feels like something of a nadir. Xbox has spun its wheels for more than a decade, lurching from U-turn to U-turn, strategic reboot to strategic reboot, acquisition to acquisition, closure to closure. The good times have always felt just over the horizon. Project Scorpio will set the tone; Game Pass is the future; the Series X will have the games; Starfield will jump-start Game Pass now it's stalled. The growing sentiment today is that they'll probably never come.

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Arkane Austin and Tango Gameworks were reportedly in the process of pitching sequels to two much-loved titles - namely Hi-Fi Rush 2 and a potential new Dishonored game - when Microsoft made the shock decision to close the studios, and more Xbox cuts are said to be on the way.

That's according to Bloomberg's Jason Schreier who, citing sources familiar with the matter, says Arkane had been looking to return to its roots following the release of last year's critically panned multiplayer shooter Redfall, and had pitched a new single-player 'immersive sim' - "such as a new entry in the Dishonored series" - to Xbox executives.

Tango Gameworks, meanwhile, was also in the pitching process, hoping to make a sequel to last year's critically acclaimed rhythm-action hit Hi-FI Rush - a game Microsoft previously called "one of the most successful launches for Bethesda and Xbox in recent years".

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The 360 years feel like a lifetime ago. This week, Xbox stunned the industry by announcing it had closed three studios, and repurposed a fourth into another service game support team. This follows the 1900 people laid off across Xbox at the start of this year, and those Xbox employees quietly caught up in the 10,000 layoffs Microsoft made the year before. It has been a disastrous piece of PR self-sabotage, particularly with the reputations of these studios in mind.

Arkane Austin struggled with the uncharacteristic co-op, online shooter elements of Redfall, but before that made the excellent 2017 reboot of Prey and the first, fantastic Dishonored that led to the immersive sim's modern mini-revival. Tango Gameworks, Microsoft's only Japan-based studio that was led, until earlier this year, by horror legend Shinji Mikami, made The Evil Within games and the critically acclaimed, BAFTA-winning breakout Hi-Fi Rush. Roundhouse Studios was founded by the makers of the original Prey, but is now presumably destined to make different coloured leather boots for The Elder Scrolls Online. Alpha Dog made mobile games, an area where Microsoft has been specifically looking to expand. More broadly, for two console generations now, Xbox has floundered under a clear and obvious lack of inventive, attention-grabbing exclusive games. It just bought these studios in 2021.

If it weren't for the people involved, in 2024, these closures would almost feel routine. This is far from the end of Xbox, of course - in Los Angeles next month, it'll hold yet another make-or-break press conference, that maps out yet another plan for rescuing a lost generation. But be it through exasperation or exhaustion - or the wider industry's sheer, pent-up rage - this feels like something of a nadir. Xbox has spun its wheels for more than a decade, lurching from U-turn to U-turn, strategic reboot to strategic reboot, acquisition to acquisition, closure to closure. The good times have always felt just over the horizon. Project Scorpio will set the tone; Game Pass is the future; the Series X will have the games; Starfield will jump-start Game Pass now it's stalled. The growing sentiment today is that they'll probably never come.

Read more

Arkane Austin and Tango Gameworks were reportedly in the process of pitching sequels to two much-loved titles - namely Hi-Fi Rush 2 and a potential new Dishonored game - when Microsoft made the shock decision to close the studios, and more Xbox cuts are said to be on the way.

That's according to Bloomberg's Jason Schreier who, citing sources familiar with the matter, says Arkane had been looking to return to its roots following the release of last year's critically panned multiplayer shooter Redfall, and had pitched a new single-player 'immersive sim' - "such as a new entry in the Dishonored series" - to Xbox executives.

Tango Gameworks, meanwhile, was also in the pitching process, hoping to make a sequel to last year's critically acclaimed rhythm-action hit Hi-FI Rush - a game Microsoft previously called "one of the most successful launches for Bethesda and Xbox in recent years".

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People had strong feelings, to put it mildly, after Xbox shuttered Arkane Austin, Tango Gameworks, and other studios, and we share some of our own. Also,PlayStation finally relented on a requirement that PC players maintain a PSN account, but not before colossal fan uproar, and as the dust started to settle, we had…

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The 360 years feel like a lifetime ago. This week, Xbox stunned the industry by announcing it had closed three studios, and repurposed a fourth into another service game support team. This follows the 1900 people laid off across Xbox at the start of this year, and those Xbox employees quietly caught up in the 10,000 layoffs Microsoft made the year before. It has been a disastrous piece of PR self-sabotage, particularly with the reputations of these studios in mind.

Arkane Austin struggled with the uncharacteristic co-op, online shooter elements of Redfall, but before that made the excellent 2017 reboot of Prey and the first, fantastic Dishonored that led to the immersive sim's modern mini-revival. Tango Gameworks, Microsoft's only Japan-based studio that was led, until earlier this year, by horror legend Shinji Mikami, made The Evil Within games and the critically acclaimed, BAFTA-winning breakout Hi-Fi Rush. Roundhouse Studios was founded by the makers of the original Prey, but is now presumably destined to make different coloured leather boots for The Elder Scrolls Online. Alpha Dog made mobile games, an area where Microsoft has been specifically looking to expand. More broadly, for two console generations now, Xbox has floundered under a clear and obvious lack of inventive, attention-grabbing exclusive games. It just bought these studios in 2021.

If it weren't for the people involved, in 2024, these closures would almost feel routine. This is far from the end of Xbox, of course - in Los Angeles next month, it'll hold yet another make-or-break press conference, that maps out yet another plan for rescuing a lost generation. But be it through exasperation or exhaustion - or the wider industry's sheer, pent-up rage - this feels like something of a nadir. Xbox has spun its wheels for more than a decade, lurching from U-turn to U-turn, strategic reboot to strategic reboot, acquisition to acquisition, closure to closure. The good times have always felt just over the horizon. Project Scorpio will set the tone; Game Pass is the future; the Series X will have the games; Starfield will jump-start Game Pass now it's stalled. The growing sentiment today is that they'll probably never come.

Read more

Arkane Austin and Tango Gameworks were reportedly in the process of pitching sequels to two much-loved titles - namely Hi-Fi Rush 2 and a potential new Dishonored game - when Microsoft made the shock decision to close the studios, and more Xbox cuts are said to be on the way.

That's according to Bloomberg's Jason Schreier who, citing sources familiar with the matter, says Arkane had been looking to return to its roots following the release of last year's critically panned multiplayer shooter Redfall, and had pitched a new single-player 'immersive sim' - "such as a new entry in the Dishonored series" - to Xbox executives.

Tango Gameworks, meanwhile, was also in the pitching process, hoping to make a sequel to last year's critically acclaimed rhythm-action hit Hi-FI Rush - a game Microsoft previously called "one of the most successful launches for Bethesda and Xbox in recent years".

Read more

Like us, you’re probably still reeling from Tuesday’s news that Hi-Fi Rush studio Tango and Prey’s Arkane Austin are getting shuttered by Microsoft. According to Bloomberg, these closures were just a part of a “widespread cost-cutting initiative” that’s still underway. All signs point towards more cuts to come, basically. ZeniMax studios seem to be the main target.

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Confident design is one thing, but there is confidence, and then there’s the almost reckless certainty required in both your game’s sturdiness and the player’s curiosity to trust a feckless, glitch-hungry, poking-and-prodding player with Prey (2017)’s GLOO Cannon. Here is a first-person game set in a sprawling, multi-tiered, metroidvania-esque space station - one boasting multiple-bathroom verisimilitude - which then immediately gives the player a gun that lets them bypass the level gating by letting them make their own ladders up keycard-locked grav-elevators.

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This past week started with a shock, as Microsoft announced it was closing a number of studios including Tango Gameworks, responsible for the very well-liked Hi-Fi Rush, leading many to wonder just what a studio has to achieve in this day and age to be deemed successful enough to exist. Also, one of the most…

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It has been a very bad week for Xbox Game Studios. On Tuesday, May 7, Microsoft announced it would shut down three studios: Redfall developer Arkane Austin, Hi-Fi Rush creators Tango Gameworks, and Mighty Doom studio Alpha Dog Games. On top of this, Roadhouse Games is being absorbed into Elder Scrolls Online developer…

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After shutting down multiple Bethesda studios, Xbox and Bethesda leadership held a town hall meeting with staff to discuss the closures, explaining that the company’s studios had been spread too thin and that it wanted to focus on fewer projects moving forward.

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Earlier this week, Xbox announced that it would be shuttering several studios it had attained as part of its $7.5 billion purchase of Bethesda, including Arkane Austin, Tango Gameworks, Alpha Dog Games, and Roundhouse Studios, the last of which is being absorbed into another team. Collectively, the studios’ produced…

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Players were excited at the prospect that Redfall might combine the fun co-op loot mechanics of a Borderlands with the bespoke environmental storytelling of a Dishonored. Ultimately, though, the day-one Game Pass blockbuster didn’t quite accomplish either of these things, and it was burdened at launch by bugs,…

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