--- title: Arkane Austin's survivors regroup, dodge NFT money to do it description: Harvey Smith and Ben Horne, veterans of Arkane Austin, have founded a new independent studio called Black Pony Immersive after Microsoft shut down Arkane... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/arkane-austin-s-survivors-regroup-dodge-nft-money-to-do-it-5b0z1ii8p twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Arkane Austin's survivors regroup, dodge NFT money to do it | daily.dev og:description: Harvey Smith and Ben Horne, veterans of Arkane Austin, have founded a new independent studio called Black Pony Immersive after Microsoft shut down Arkane... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/arkane-austin-s-survivors-regroup-dodge-nft-money-to-do-it-5b0z1ii8p og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/5B0Z1iI8P.png og:image:alt: Arkane Austin's survivors regroup, dodge NFT money to do it og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Arkane Austin's survivors regroup, dodge NFT money to do it **[Trends](https://daily.dev/sources/trends)** · 2 min read · 4 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary Harvey Smith and Ben Horne, veterans of Arkane Austin, have founded a new independent studio called Black Pony Immersive after Microsoft shut down Arkane Austin in 2024 following Redfall's failure. The 26-person team includes several former Arkane, Insomniac, Epic, Avalanche, and Volition developers, and is focused on single-player, narrative-driven, systems-based action RPGs in the immersive-sim tradition. The founders say they turned down investor funding tied to NFTs and blockchain during fundraising, prioritizing independence and staying true to the genre despite a tough market for original single-player games. No project details have been announced yet. ## Content Microsoft shut down Arkane Austin in 2024 after Redfall flopped, laying off 96 people. Harvey Smith, the studio's former creative director and one of the minds behind Deus Ex and Dishonored 2, spent the aftermath doing what a lot of displaced game devs do after a studio closure: quietly rebuilding. The result is Black Pony Immersive, a new independent studio he co-founded with producer Ben Horne, operating in stealth since August 2025 before going public this week. The headline isn't really the studio, though. It's what Smith and Horne say they had to turn down to get it funded. "We chose the worst time in history" to raise money for a new studio, Smith says, and the reporting backs that up. Traditional publisher funding for original single-player games has been drying up for years, which pushed the pair into rooms with investors who came with strings attached. Specifically: money tied to NFTs and blockchain. They said no. In an industry where studios are shutting down monthly and severance packages are the best-case scenario, walking away from a check because it smelled like a crypto play is a real statement about what kind of company they're trying to build. The team itself is the other interesting thread. Twenty-six people, and it reads like a reunion tour for the immersive-sim genre: Arkane veterans Ricardo Bare and Monte Martinez are back alongside Smith and Horne, plus hires pulled from Insomniac, Epic, Avalanche, and Volition. That's a lot of studios that have either closed, downsized, or pivoted away from the exact kind of game Black Pony says it wants to make: single-player, first-person, narrative-heavy, systems-driven action RPGs where player creativity does the heavy lifting. There's something pointed about a studio explicitly built around health-care benefits and staying independent, launching right after its founders watched their old employer get shuttered by a platform holder chasing live-service returns. It reads less like a pivot and more like a rebuttal. No project details yet, and Smith is staying tight-lipped on specifics. Given how the immersive-sim genre has been treated by publishers lately (see: Arkane's own pivot to Redfall, and how that ended), the real question isn't what Black Pony is building. It's whether the market will let a studio like this survive long enough to ship it. ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Former ZeniMax Online devs form Ironroot Games following "traumatising" layoffs](https://daily.dev/posts/former-zenimax-online-devs-form-ironroot-games-following-traumatising-layoffs-4xvknnjxv) · GamesIndustry.biz · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#microsoft](https://daily.dev/tags/microsoft), [#game-development](https://daily.dev/tags/game-development), [#nft](https://daily.dev/tags/nft) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/arkane-austin-s-survivors-regroup-dodge-nft-money-to-do-it-5b0z1ii8p) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Arkane Austin's survivors regroup, dodge NFT money to do it","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/arkane-austin-s-survivors-regroup-dodge-nft-money-to-do-it-5b0z1ii8p","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/arkane-austin-s-survivors-regroup-dodge-nft-money-to-do-it-5b0z1ii8p"},"datePublished":"2026-08-20T12:54:40.552Z","dateModified":"2026-08-20T12:55:22.782Z","description":"Harvey Smith and Ben Horne, veterans of Arkane Austin, have founded a new independent studio called Black Pony Immersive after Microsoft shut down Arkane...","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/84d9dd3ea818c1e5044f5de5bfc76589?_a=AQAEuop","thumbnailUrl":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/84d9dd3ea818c1e5044f5de5bfc76589?_a=AQAEuop","isAccessibleForFree":true,"articleSection":"Trends","inLanguage":"en","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180}},"author":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Trends","logo":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--ZfSp3asX--/f_auto,q_auto/v1780996004/logos/trends?_a=BAMAMiWQ0","url":"https://daily.dev/sources/trends"},"commentCount":0,"discussionUrl":"https://daily.dev/posts/arkane-austin-s-survivors-regroup-dodge-nft-money-to-do-it-5b0z1ii8p","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":4},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":0}],"keywords":"microsoft,game-development,nft","timeRequired":"PT2M"} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Trends","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/trends"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"Arkane Austin's survivors regroup, dodge NFT money to do it"}]} ```