Arkane Veterans Harvey Smith and Ben Horne Reunite: “We’re Back to the Games We Love”

The formation of Black Pony Immersive, a new studio founded by Arkane veterans Harvey Smith, Ben Horne, and Ricardo Bare, signals a strategic return to the immersive sim genre. Operating for one year with a core team of 26 employees and backed by an unnamed publisher, the studio aims to revitalize the narrative-driven, first-person action RPG format that defined titles such as Dishonored and Deus Ex. The founders emphasize a commitment to creative vision over trend-chasing, arguing that immersive sims maintain significant cultural cachet and long-term commercial viability when managed with reasonable budgets.

The studio’s operational philosophy reflects a departure from the large-scale, live-service models that characterized the founders' recent work on Redfall. Reflecting on the critical and commercial failure of that project, the team identifies the pressure to conform to industry trends as a primary cause of development friction. In response, Black Pony Immersive is adopting a lean, "Hollywood-style" production model. This approach utilizes a small, permanent core team to maintain creative chemistry and institutional knowledge, while scaling up through external partners and contractors as needed.

This model is intended to protect the creative core from the administrative and political layers often found in larger corporate environments. By prioritizing independent creative control and focusing on specific, dedicated audiences, the founders seek to avoid the pitfalls of over-extension. The studio’s name serves as a symbolic nod to the necessity of maintaining optimism and creative integrity within a volatile industry landscape, reinforcing their goal to produce high-quality, single-player experiences that prioritize player agency and creative problem-solving.