The rumors regarding Xbox's studio divestitures were spot on: Compulsion Games and Double Fine are returning to management, Ninja Theory and Undead Labs are being sold, and Arkane Lyon is still evaluating its strategic options with the Work Council.
While the four aforementioned teams already know their fate, the same cannot be said for the French team behind Dishonored and Deathloop, which may be embroiled in months of negotiations and work to find a solution. However, Arkane founder Raphaël Colantonio appears to have expressed interest in acquiring the studio from Xbox.
Responding directly to Sharma's announcement tweet, he wrote:
Regarding Arkane… how much? I’m asking for a friend 😝
Colantonio famously left Arkane in June 2017. Two years later, he resurfaced after founding a new indie studio, WolfEye, which later launched the isometric immersive action RPG Weird West. The game was well received and also sold well enough for the team to launch a more ambitious second project, after receiving additional funding and NEOWIZ as the publisher for their first-person action RPG set in a retro sci-fi world with immersive sim DNA.
Now, the big question mark is whether he's serious or not about the offer. If so, he could conceivably petition NEOWIZ about the benefits of folding an experienced developer like Arkane into WolfEye. This could possibly be the best outcome for the French team, which otherwise faces a nebulous future.
Colantonio previously didn't mince words against Microsoft when it closed Arkane Austin in 2024. Furthermore, after last year's mass layoffs, he slammed Game Pass as unsustainable and even harmful to the games industry (which was arguably proven right this year, with Xbox forced to reduce the Game Pass price and remove Call of Duty from the platform). That said, if Colantonio is serious about the offer to acquire Arkane, his past statements are unlikely to cause any trouble to the deal - this is business, after all.
About the author: With over two decades of experience in gaming journalism, Alessio Palumbo has led the gaming vertical at Wccftech since August 2015. He started working at a young age for Italian websites like Everyeye.it, Gamestar.it, Nextgame.it, and Multiplayer.it before kickstarting the indie English-language publication Worlds Factory as its founder and Editor in Chief. In the last decade, he has coordinated the overall output of Wccftech's gaming section, managed PR relations, assigned reviews, produced daily news coverage, edited gaming content as needed, and delivered game reviews. Arguably, his trademark content is the long series of exclusive developer interviews that have been cited by Wikipedia and by the biggest news media and gaming publications. His passion for technology also makes him knowledgeable when it comes to gaming hardware and tech. His favorite genres include RPGs, MMORPGs, and action/adventure games.
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