Arkane Lyon has a few short weeks to find a buyer before it is shut down. According to a report in Le Monde, one of France’s leading newspapers, developers at the French studio are hoping to secure more time to find a buyer before Xbox closes it for good.
As spotted by Gematsu, Xbox acquired Arkane Studios as apart of it acquisition of ZeniMax Media in 2021. In 2024, Xbox shut down sister studio Arkane Austin after its multiplayer vampire shooter Redfall failed to live up to expectations. Two years later, Arkane Lyon became one of the numerous studios marked for divestment or death during Xbox’s cataclysmic reset back in July. Double Fine and Compulsion Games were spun off, Undead Labs has become employee owned, and Ninja Theory has begun letting people go after two attempts to save the studio fell through. But Arkane Lyon entered a holding pattern in which its fate remained uncertain, as French labor laws require companies with at least 1,000 employees to attempt to find a buyer before engaging in mass layoffs or closure. That three-month period expires on November 13th, giving Arkane Lyon roughly three weeks to find a savior.
In the meantime, Arkane Lyon, known for its work on Dishonored and Deathloop, has been working on developing Marvel’s Blade, Xbox’s attempt to capturr some of the prestige (and sales) of PlayStation’s Wolverine and Spider-Man games. Blade was announced at the Game Awards in 2023, but there have been no other updates on the game’s progress and Xbox reportedly wanted to cancel the game entirely.
However, union representatives speaking on behalf of developers to Le Monde say that Blade is “nearing the end” of its development, and that it’d be a “monumental waste” for the game to remain unfinished in the event of Arkane Lyon’s closure. One potential avenue of rescue is Arkane founder Raphael Colantonio, who asked, perhaps seriously or perhaps not, how much it’d cost to buy the studio back from Xbox. If he’s not serious, let’s hope somebody is. It’d suck for such a storied developer to shut down and for us to lose yet another promising Blade project.