Arkane Lyon is still on the Xbox chopping block after the company’s summer cuts; the studio has been attempting to negotiate a sale to avoid Microsoft closing it down. On Wednesday, French union Syndicat des Travailleureuses du Jeu Vidéo released a scathing open letter putting the blame for the studio’s situation squarely where it says it belongs: on Microsoft.
“Microsoft chose to justify the closure on economic reasons. But Microsoft is actually why those economic reasons even exist,” wrote STJV, as first reported by Vertical Slice. The union claims Microsoft froze hiring, which delayed work on Arkane’s Blade game, and then used this “same delay and additional cost as a reason to close down the studio.” The union also claims that Arkane’s “cash pool is always low as any remaining cash is systematically funneled to the group through a cash pooling mecanic [sic].”
“The truth is that Microsoft based its decision [to close Arkane] only on stone cold and inhuman logic, in which our lives, projects and dreams are voided, so we can better serve Microsoft’s short term financial goals,” STJV wrote. “...the decision to close Arkane is solely the brutal application of a never-ending search for maximum profit optimization. Arkane is profitable. Just not profitable enough for Microsoft.”
“Our studio might get closed because, and only because, Microsoft decided to, even if that means sabotaging the game it funded,” STJV wrote.
Bloomberg reported Tuesday that there are several bids out for Arkane, including Ubisoft, and that Xbox has also considered letting the studio go independent. That latter move would follow in the footsteps of Compulsion and Double Fine, beloved studios Microsoft also decided to jettison. Microsoft-owned studio Ninja Theory has had trouble finding a buyer, and suffered layoffs in October ahead of a potential closure.
Were Arkane to shut down, STJV wrote that this would “let down 217 workers, 217 people with lives and hopes that would be crushed by this decision and thrown on the job market at a time where it is going through an unprecedented crisis. To those 217 people, you can add contractors, freelancers, technicians, etc. that allow our studio to operate on a daily basis. So, in addition to the developers, hundreds of workers lifes [sic] are at risk.”
STJV’s letter makes several demands of Microsoft in the event of a closure, including additional compensation and support for finding new jobs. Were the studio to be sold, the union demands a say in choosing a buyer and for a fund to be set up to help workers if they’re laid off for economic reasons for a period of time after the sale. “[W]e will not allow the lives of Arkane Studios’ workers to be destroyed without the company paying a fair price,” STJV wrote.
The deadline for a decision on Arkane’s fate was originally November 13, but STJV notes that Microsoft has extended it another month; Bloomberg reported that the studio now has into December.
In addition to its in-progress Blade game, which STJV wrote is “going fine, and that the level of quality of the game to be expected is on part [sic] with what Arkane has accustomed its players,” Arkane Lyon created Dishonored and Deathloop. Microsoft shuttered Dishonored co-creator Arkane Austin, alongside three other studios, in 2024.
Aftermath has reached out to Microsoft for comment.
