Silent Hill creator and director of upcoming horror title Slitterhead Keiichiro Toyama has commented on Microsoft’s shock closure of Tango Gameworks in Might 2024.
Talking to VGC, Toyama used the instance of Elden Ring developer FromSoftware as a “profitable” studio as, whereas Darkish Souls, Bloodborne, and Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice are completely different video games, all of them characteristic the studio’s signature gameplay loop.
In distinction, Tango Gameworks, which was based in 2010 by horror recreation visionary and Resident Evil creator Shinji Mikami, jumped round genres, going from a equally third-person survival horror franchise The Evil Within to rhythm-based motion recreation Hello-Fi Rush, through the spooky however not strictly horror, first-person, open-world motion platformer Ghostwire: Tokyo.
Hello-Fi Rush is a smaller scale recreation in contrast to earlier Tango Gameworks titles, one absent of the darkish themes the studio was beforehand identified for. However Microsoft claimed it was a hit, reaching two million gamers in a month and receiving excessive reward from critics. A 12 months after launch, nevertheless, Microsoft shocked the online game world by shutting Tango Gameworks down.
“I don’t really feel it’s my place to give them recommendation, however I feel going again to what I stated earlier concerning the stability of routine and preserving the model of your video games is related,” Toyama stated of the closure.
“You have a look at an instance like FromSoftware: they hold making completely different video games however sure types and facets of their video games keep the identical. That’s an apparent instance of how a studio is profitable. Not altering every part each time is likely to be the important thing to life and surviving.”
Tango Gameworks’ closure got here alongside different lay-offs at Microsoft, together with the shutting down of Redfall developer Arkane Austin, amid cuts affecting 1,900 workers.
Microsoft’s gaming executives have remained obscure to this point on the precise causes for the closures, however Xbox boss Phil Spencer later mentioned it with IGN.
“I’ve to run a sustainable enterprise inside the corporate and develop, and meaning generally I’ve to make exhausting choices that frankly aren’t choices I really like, however choices that any individual wants to go make,” he stated.
In the meantime, FromSoftware’s Elden Ring has offered an unbelievable 25 million copies, with DLC Shadow of the Erdtree offered 5 million in simply three days.
Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelance reporter. He’ll discuss The Witcher all day.