Arkane Studios bought by ZeniMax

[Kolzig]

Yesterday it was announced at QuakeCon that Bethesda parent company ZeniMax has bought now Arkane Studios, the makers of Arx Fatalis and Dark Messiah of Might & Magic. Apparently they did some stuff with 2K Marin on Bioshock 2 also.

One more developer gone to join the big boys. So boo.

But on the other hand with the other yesterday's news that id tech 5 will only be licensed to ZeniMax owned companies, now Arkane, Harvey Smith & co. can start making games with id tech 5. So yay.

They were working over a year ago with Valve on The Crossing, but I guess that is pretty much cancelled now?

[Forbin]

I wouldn't exactly call ZeniMax the big boys. I'm still curious what's going to come out of Id under their ownership, but it seems like they're kinda laid back.

[beanman101283]

I think ZeniMax definitely wants to be one of the big boys, though. They might be the next 2K in a few years if they release some good games.

[soupface]

I dunno about the "boo." When ZeniMax bought id it was kinda strange, since they were once among the most successful and technically accomplished developers as well as independent. It did seem like backtracking, out of character, but it wasn't bad news. I don't think id had to give up much beyond some of the attitude that it earned (and has been carrying since) the mid-90's.

Arkane has done some cool stuff, and I'm eager to see what Smith and Colantonio have been up to, but they've never been as big (in production or sales) or as independent (in attitude and notability) as id. I mean, Colantonio himself has said that "I don't think [independence] was in our DNA… It's not fun to be independent—really, this is called more a 'dependent developer,' if you ask me."

So congratulations to Arkane. I wouldn't hold anything against them for becoming a part of ZeniMax. I hope this really is an opportunity for them to work on the deep and ambitious games they seem most interested in making.

[Murdoc]

Zenimax isn't one of the big boys? Yeah owning Bethseda, ID, and Spalsh Damage doesn't make you a player at all...

Granted it's a small company next to EA, Activsion; but really they have some really solid, quality stuff and some industry defining properties that I would have to say makes them one of the big companies, even if they don't release a million titles a year to rack up a ton of revenue.

It's one of the reasons ID partnered with them anyway, to help tip some of the balance, I would imagine.

Will love to see what they do with the rage engine.

[Jake]

Will be renamed "Nick Breckon's Arkane Studios."

[MrHoatzin]

Woo, I hope they make something like Arx Fatalis again.

  Reveal hidden contents

With the Rage engine and in the Elder Scrolls universe perhaps?

[Sleepdance]

Good point. Even if the Rage fails the technology will still be there and could pretty fast refund the investment made on the game and raise the overall quality of games (in theory).

[Erkki]

  Kingzjester said:

Woo, I hope they make something like Arx Fatalis again.

  Reveal hidden contents

With the Rage engine and in the Elder Scrolls universe perhaps?

Now that would be interesting, especially if they mixed the physical combat of Dark Messiah in there as well.

[Murdoc]

I bought Dark Messiah for some reason, I guess I was really bored one day. I liked the environments and the combat, but that story was just too hard to suffer along. I think I stopped due to a hard crash and a loss of a save.

Anyway, I'd love to see a real rpg from them with a modern engine and similar combat mechanics.

I sort of dug the swimmy feel of the movement in DM.

[Kolzig]

Holy crap!

Arkane just surprised everyone and suddenly released a patch to Arx Fatalis to fix many things and make the game playable on Vista&Win7!

Arx Fatalis English v1.21

-------------------------

- Improved overall game stability under Microsoft© Windows Vista© & Windows 7©.

- Fixed blinking effect that may happen when starting a new game.

- Fixed HUD scaling when display resolution is higher than 1024x960.

- Fixed EAX option: value is now saved when leaving the option menu.

- Fixed an issue with the game locking-up when opening player inventory.

- Fixed length of cinemascope bars displayed during cinematics.

- Fixed some performance issues with a few Nvidia GPU (see Notes).

Notes:

- If you experience in game framerate drops or stuttering, please give a try to the "Enable Rendering Fix" option in the Video settings.

- This patch will remain the very last Arx Fatalis update released by Arkane Studios.

However, the whole source code of the game is now available for download, which means

that numerous fan made updates/mods may be found around the Internet. Arkane Studios won't

provide any kind of answer or support regarding community developed content.

http://arkane-studios.com/uk/arx_downloads.php

[Erkki]

Cool. I guess I'll replay Arx Fatalis. Is it available on Steam or somewhere? I think I played this last when I still used to pirate games. It's on Steam for 5€ but I guess the patch doesn't apply to that version?

ZeniMax seems to be picking up cool studios. oh, this wasn't a new thread

[Orv]

  Erkki said:

Cool. I guess I'll replay Arx Fatalis. Is it available on Steam or somewhere? I think I played this last when I still used to pirate games. It's on Steam for 5€ but I guess the patch doesn't apply to that version?

ZeniMax seems to be picking up cool studios. oh, this wasn't a new thread

GOG

[Erkki]

  Orvidos said:

GOG

Actually it seems the Steam version is patched too.

[Kolzig]

Well, that wasn't that surprising. Don't games usually get always patched up pretty quickly also in Steam?