Now that Prey has released, developer Arkane is already looking ahead towards its next project. Thanks to some clues found on the ZeniMax job listings website , we know that this project will very likely be something online. Unfortunately, that’s about all we know so far.
In the posting, Arkane’s Austin branch seeks an online game engineer. The responsibilities for the position include working with other engineers to architect and refine game systems and features related to online games. Some requirements for candidates include having worked on at least one AAA title as a contributing online engineer, as well as five or more years of development experience writing client-server game applications.
All this means that whatever Arkane is working on next, it’s going to have online components. This is a major departure from previous Arkane games, with Prey and the Dishonored games being single-player-only experiences. Arkane also is known for first-person games, so perhaps this online title will be a departure from everything the studio has done in the past.
There is also the potential that this game could involve VR. In the job listing for a senior graphics engineer, one of the desired skills is “VR and/or Scorpio [experience] is a big plus.” This isn’t as obvious as the online information, especially because VR experience isn’t listed as a requirement. As seen with Fallout VR and DOOM VR, it’s possible Bethesda is interested in having more VR ports of games, with this mystery game being built with VR in mind.
Other job listings for Arkane don’t provide as much insight as the online game engineer listing. These other jobs are all senior-level positions, but are the more standard AI engineer and technical artist roles you can find on just about any game.
We do know Arkane will have to fill some big shoes as well. The studio’s co-creative director, Raphael Colantonio, recently announced he is leaving Arkane to spend more time with his family. With Colantonio gone, Arkane will need to attract some major talent to pick up the slack.
So what do you think? Are you interested in an online game from Arkane? What do you think this project will end up being like? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.
