Arkane Founder Revealed Why He Left Bethesda

Raphael Colantonio, the former director and co-founder of Arkane, founded the studio in 1999. Since 2010, Arkane has been owned by Bethesda. The studio released a number of successful titles, including the beloved Dishonored and Prey. The latter launched in 2017, and shortly after, the developer decided to leave Arkane to step back from the industry. Currently, Colantonio is leading WolfEye Studios and working on a new title. In a recent interview, Raphael Colantonio shared why he decided to leave the studio.

"All I can tell you is that part of the reason why I left Bethesda was that they did not want to do the kind of games that we wanted to make," the developer says (via PC Gamer). He compares Arkane's approach to Larian and FromSoftware: "Those are people that have been doing, over and over, the thing they know exactly how to do until it hits super hard. So, to me, that's what Arkane had to do."

Colantonio and Bethesda's visions of which games should be released differed significantly. The Arkane founder wanted to continue the direction of Dishonored and Prey. However, the company "decided that was not part of the strategy anymore" and planned to launch more live service games.

Arkane's latest release, Redfall, didn't launch successfully. Less than a year later, Arkane Studios was shut down. Raphael Colantonio's studio, WolfEye Studios, is working on a first-person sci-fi action RPG. He said that fans of Dishonored and Prey would like the new project.

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