Raphael Colantonio, known for Dishonored, Prey and more, left the company last year 2017. For him, big productions prevent progress.
Raphael Colantonio, founder of Arkane Studios, believes that triple-A video games end up destroying the creativity of developers by availing themselves of royalties established by commercial demand. The prestigious developer, with prominent roles in works such as Dishonored or Prey, left the company in 2017 and has now commented on his vision of major productions in a meeting with PC Gamer.
“[…] you are no longer making a game, you are creating a product ”.
WolfEye Studios is your new home. This modest study, which is in charge of giving color and shape to the action RPG called Weird West, leaves a Colantonio more open to the creativity that he accuses so much; although things are not so different. Of course, “now we can take more risks and be less concerned about the market than if we were doing a triple A”. And he highlights: “Since the numbers to make a triple A profitable are so high, you are no longer making a game, you are creating a product.”
Raphael Colantonio
The WolfEye co-founder claims to have been limited by “creative anxiety” during his time at Arkane. “My dream when I joined Arkane in 1999 was to work at Underworld for the rest of my life.” There is no room for speculation around his departure from Arkane, but everything responds to a general exhaustion over the years. “I was tired, in general, I just wanted to take a break and focus on other things.”
From this interview, it is also clear that Colantonio will not work on a triple A video game again. Now the challenge is greater, “with fewer people, less money, but it is our thing from beginning to end”, a feeling that he considers “really gratifying”.
The past is indelible, however, and works like Arx Fatalis, Dark Messiah of Might and Magic, Dishonored and Prey are now considered, twenty years after the founding of the studio, as some of the most important video games in the action RPG genre. with elements of puzzle, exploration and adventure.
Weird West, on the other hand, will arrive on PC at the end of 2020 by the hand of Devolver Digital.
