Dishonored co-creator’s new studio rejects trend chasing — and that’s exactly why it might succeed

Harvey Smith, co-creator of Dishonored, and Ben Horne, a veteran of Arkane Studios, have launched a new studio called Black Pony Immersive. In an interview with The Game Business, they explained why the studio will deliberately avoid chasing market trends — a lesson they learned the hard way after the collapse of Arkane Austin.

Smith and Horne were part of Arkane Austin, the studio behind the ill-fated Redfall, a live-service shooter that was widely criticized and ultimately led to the studio's closure by Microsoft. Many observers felt that Arkane was forced to make a game far outside its core competency — immersive sims — and the result was a disaster. Smith and Horne now want to avoid repeating that mistake.

"If you look back through those games, there are a lot of titles that people still talk about 10 or 20 years later," Smith said, referring to immersive sims like BioShock, Deus Ex, and Dishonored. "They have a lot of cultural cachet. And there are a few, if you look at BioShock or Deus Ex or Dishonored, that make a lot of money."

Smith also addressed the industry's ballooning budgets. He noted that Dishonored's budget was "very reasonable" compared to many triple-I titles, and the game's return on investment was four to five times the total spend. "Many triple-I developers would envy that budget," he added.

For Horne, the core mission of Black Pony Immersive is to break free from trend chasing — which he believes was the fatal flaw of Redfall. The studio aims to return to the roots of immersive sims: creating games that players will remember for years, rather than trying to copy popular mechanics or live-service models. The team is deliberately avoiding the pressure to follow industry fads, focusing instead on what made their earlier work resonate with audiences.