Now It's Official: Redfall Heads To Maintenance Mode And Arkane Austin Will Close, More Microsoft Cuts Announced

Look, this one wasn't hard to see coming at all. In fact, we wrote about Redfall, the vampire shooter game from Arkane Austin, back in August of 2023 positing that the game was probably dead, and that was after about 2 months of radio silence from the team.

Since then, there's been activity on the game's social media simply posting various screen shots, but there's been no reply from the myriad of players asking about the promised new characters and content that was sold in the Hero's Pass with the "Bite Back" and or "Premium Bite Back" enhanced versions of the title.

Today, the sad news becomes official as development of Redfall is ceasing and, sadly, Arkane Austin is no more. Part of the studio that brought you Prey is closing down. Arkane Lyon will stay active and continue to work on the existing projects.

The loss of Arkane Austin is just part of larger changes Microsoft is making leading to more layoffs and cuts in the gaming industry. Hi-Fi Rush developer Tango Gameworks and Alpha Dog Studios will also close, and other teams will be absorbed into Zenimax, likely to be on Elder Scrolls Online projects.

As the 1st anniversary of Redfall came and went a few days ago, there still wasn't any word on the future additional content. Now we know that the content is scrapped and no new development will take place. Bethesda is offering "credit" to those who purchased the enhanced editions of Redfall, but, as of this writing, that credit process (and exactly what type of credit it will BE) is still in flux. You can follow this post to get the information as soon as it is posted. 

Servers for Redfall will continue to operate for the foreseeable future if you want to get your vampire hunting on for a bit longer, but I personally wouldn't count on them being up all that long.

We hope any Arkane Austin employees that aren't picked up by other Bethesda projects land on their feet as quickly as possible as the 2024 studio closures continue.