Harvey Smith, previously having worked on games such as Deus Ex and Deus Ex: Invisible War, would join Arkane Austin in 2008 after meeting with Raphaël Colantonio, a French developer who had known Harvey from years prior and would design a pitch tied to Dishonored during said meeting. Smith would work as co-creative director for Arkane Austin, and alongside Colantonio would help develop Dishonored and later Dishonored 2, the latter of which he was sole director of.
Many might remember when back in 2024, Arkane Austin, the studio behind games such as the iconic Prey (2017) and the not-so-iconic Redfall, was closed following poor performance of the latter-mentioned game. At this time, Microsoft would also shut down Alpha Dog Studios, the creators behind the mobile game Mighty Doom, and Tango Gameworks, the creators of The Evil Within and Hi-Fi Rush. Arkane Lyon creative-director Dinga Bakaba would react to the closure of Arkane Austin on X, saying, “to any executive reading this, friendly reminder that video games are an entertainment/cultural industry, and your business as a corporation is to take care of your artists/entertainers and help them create value for you”.
This is absolutely terrible. Permission to be human : to any executive reading this, friendly reminder that video games are an entertainment/cultural industry, and your business as a corporation is to take care of your artists/entertainers and help them create value for you.
— Dinga Bakaba 451 (@DBakaba) May 7, 2024
Two years following Arkane Austin’s closure, Harvey Smith and Ben Horne (another former Arkane developer), during an interview with The Game Business, would announce on August 19th, 2026 the creation of Black Pony Immersive, which aims to focus on developing first-person action RPGs like the ones they’d worked on in the past. The studio itself is made up of former Arkane developers, as well as those from the likes of Epic, Insomniac, Volition, and Avalanche, and aims to provide narrative-focused experiences that provide different avenues of experimentation that grant players multiple ways of approaching a game. Although no games have been announced yet, fans of Smith’s previous works should surely be excited at the possibility of what the Black Pony Immersive will end up creating. According to Smith in his interview with The Game Business, “We want to make immersive sims. We want to make single player, narrative driven, first person games where you explore and solve problems creatively. Think Deus Ex, think Dishonored, that’s what we’re doing.”