WolfEye Studios’ follow-up to Weird West is going sci-fi
WolfEye Studios’ Weird West was an excellent, though somewhat overlooked, 2022 isometric RPG that felt at times like an immersive sim stealth game. Now the team led by former Arkane staff are taking aim at something bigger: a first-person RPG that mixes elements of Fallout and Dishonored in a wrapper of alt-history, sci-fi Americana.
“We are so happy to be able to officially confirm that our next game is actively in production and that it is a First Person Action RPG,” WolfEye boss and Arkane founder Raphael Colantonio said in a press release. “Fans of the past games I have been involved with such as Dishonored and Prey will feel at home, as well as fans of RPGs in general.”
The game is still looking for a publisher, but has already wrapped up pre-production and is currently taking sign-ups for a “limited private Alpha” test in early 2025. Executive producer Julien Roby told Eurogamer in an interview that the broad aim is for something along the lines of “Fallout meets Dishonored,” which could mean a ton of things but sound like magic words for longtime fans of Arkane-style games. One of the pieces of concept art shared sure looks like cross between a steam punk contraption and atomic age robot.
Arkane Lyon, meanwhile, is currently working on Marvel’s Blade, an action game starring the comic book vampire hunter Eric Brooks. Microsoft’s recent decision to shutdown its sister-studio, Arkane Austin, has left a big hole in the immersive sim genre. It made the moody 2017 sci-fi stealth game Prey, which didn’t get the love it deserved at the time. No one can replace that studio, but it’s a minor consolation prize that WolfEye is in a position to build on some of that work and usher in its next evolution.
According to Eurogamer, the studio is still about 50 to 60 people, and not looking to grow much beyond that. So whatever the currently unnamed project ends up as, it won’t be some triple-A blockbuster open-world game. Hopefully, it’s something much more expressive and unique instead.
