Ubisoft and at least two other companies have reportedly offered to buy Dishonored and Marvel's Blade dev Arkane Studios from Microsoft as the company seeks to spin out multiple Xbox developers.
Bloomberg reports that Ubisoft – which, like Arkane, is based in France – placed an offer in undisclosed and early-stage negotiations.
Other Xbox studios, like Psychonauts 2 maker Double Fine, have gone independent post-Xbox as Microsoft brute forces a "reset" plan under new leadership. Two agreements to save Hellblade developer Ninja Theory fell through, and in September, Arkane's future was also looking uncertain. Last month, in a move that sure seems to align with today's report, Xbox announced an extension to the deadline to "explore options" for Arkane's future.
Conflicting reports make it difficult to estimate how much work still needs to be done on Blade, which has occupied Arkane for years, including the years after Xbox closed down Arkane Austin following the Redfall disaster. Whether it's almost finished or still needs a year of work, Blade will need new backing, which is where this deal comes in.
Ubisoft would be a curious home for Arkane, though you could point to shared stealth action DNA between Dishonored and Assassin's Creed. And again, they're also both French, which is especially relevant concerning labor laws.
However, much like Microsoft, Ubisoft has a reputation for shuttering a lot of teams and cancelling a lot of games, though you'll hardly find a large publisher with a squeaky-clean graveyard these days.
Ubisoft is also going through its own reset following several disappointing years, with a new subsidiary dedicated to pillar franchises like Assassin's Creed propped up with backing from Tencent. By some miracle, this reset has not yet seen the end of Beyond Good & Evil 2, which – not to be outdone by the misguided Dragon Age: The Veilguard pivots that certainly contributed to the end of BioWare – Ubisoft apparently wanted to be a live service game at one point.
