I hope Arkane Austin devs can unite once more to make a cool game; As corporate funded games tend to be way too safe and often disappointing. Seeing them make a breakout hit would be like egg in Microsoft's face, I'd feel a rush of schadenfreude!

Bethesda only published the game (obviously had some influence on development by way of making demands), Arkane Austin was the developer. The scuttlebutt that I could find was that internally they weren't interested in making a multi-player/online game. So, it was a problem because it led to understaffing due to so many members leaving the project after losing hope in their Redfall game. It created a mess that lead us to the release version of Redfall. There were strokes of Arkane genius within the bones, but the flesh was poorly constructed as a result. If Arkane Austin weren't pushed in a bad direction by their publisher, Bethesda; I feel that we could've gotten a better version of Redfall. Microsoft shouldn't have closed their studio because of that failure, such a short-sighted move enacted by an inept executive looking for quick savings.