Since Xbox announced plans for a structural reset this past summer, Microsoft and its video game division have been seeking divestitures of multiple studios, including Zenimax’s critically-acclaimed Arkane studio based in Lyon, France. Due to the French law mandating a period of consultation with the Social and Economic Committee before any large-scale layoffs.
Arkane has held on while Microsoft seeks a buyer. And now a new report indicates what the studio’s fate may hold, which includes possibilities like being purchased by Ubisoft or selling the studio to its own management.
As reported by Bloomberg, Arkane is currently accepting multiple bidders, though no deal has come close yet. The deal would seemingly allow Arkane to finish out work on Marvel’s Blade, announced in 2023 and expected to be released in the next 1-2 years.
Ubisoft is one of those bidders, headquartered just under 300 miles from Lyon. The details of Ubisoft’s bid were not reported, but both Arkane and Ubisoft have worked together in the past on games like 2006’s Dark Messiah of Might & Magic. Another bidding consideration for Microsoft is allowing the studio to essentially go independent, selling the studio to its management in a deal that presumably would not look wholly different to Xbox’s divestitures from Double Fine and Undead Labs.
Arkane has produced numerous games in its founding in 1999 and subsequent acquisition by Zenimax in 2010. The studio is renown for titles like Prey, Dishonored, and Deathloop. Arkane Austin, an American branch studio under the same brand name, was founded in 2006 and closed in 2024 after the release of Redfall.
An agreement with a buyer could be Arkane Lyon’s last hope, as Microsoft has not shown compunction about eviscerating a studio that could not find a buyer, such as the case with Ninja Theory and its reported layoffs. If Arkane leadership does not want the studio’s employees to join the 3000 other jobs being eliminated in the wake of the Xbox reset initiative, hoping that Microsoft closes a deal with a buyer might be their only option.
Story via Gamedeveloper. Read the original article
