Game industry veterans of Arkane Austin, the developer best known for the Dishonored series, have announced a new studio two years after closure.
Black Pony Immersive is led by Harvey Smith, creative director of Dishonored 2 and Dishonored: Death of the Outsider, and Ben Horne, most recently the production director on Redfall. The duo worked together at Arkane Austin for years until parent company Microsoft shut down the studio in 2024.
The co-founders secretly opened the doors of Black Pony Immersive in August 2025, only now making the announcement public. “During a time of industry volatility, I’m proud to announce the next step in my video game journey with the reveal of our new studio,” said Harvey Smith, who’s acting as CEO and creative director. “This effort reflects everything we’ve learned, and all we hold dear.”
“This group has worked together for years, decades in some cases, and is purpose-built to make the ambitious games we love—immersive sims,” said Ben Horne, who’s acting as COO and executive producer.”
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Black Pony has a headcount of 26 (thanks, GamesIndustry.biz), which includes fellow talent from Arkane, but also studios Insomniac, Avalanche, Volition, and Epic. Among them are Ricardo Bare, who worked as a designer on the Deus Ex series alongside Smith, and Monte Martinez, formerly of Ion Storm and WolfEye fame. All of the studio’s full-time employees are based in the United States, with support from contractors and external devs across the globe.
Speaking to GamesIndustry.biz, Smith says the studio doesn’t have to “seek much approval from anyone else,” which makes the team “very nimble.” However, getting to this point wasn’t exactly easy—as Horne says, the co-founders spent a lot of time in a “really horrible environment for fundraising,” talking to different groups about how to raise money.
“We turned down some deals that just didn’t feel right,” Horne tells the publication. “You know, ‘hey, if you guys are willing to maybe think about this NFT blockchain situation…’ As much [as we wanted] to get this off the ground, let’s try to do it the right way.”
Black Pony Immersive is currently working on an unannounced single-player and narrative-rich game that will draw from the team’s experience on emergent game mechanics.
About the Author
Contributing Editor, News, GameDeveloper.com
Diego Nicolás Argüello is a freelance journalist and critic from Argentina. Video games helped him to learn English, so now he covers them for places like The New York Times, NPR, Rolling Stone, and more. He also runs Into the Spine, a site dedicated to fostering and supporting new writers, and co-hosted Turnabout Breakdown, a podcast about the Ace Attorney series. He’s most likely playing a rhythm game as you read this.