Veteran game developer Harvey Smith , known mostly as the Co-Creative Director on Dishonored , Creative Director on Dishonored 2 , and Lead Game Designer on Deus Ex , officially unveiled Black Pony Immersive , a new studio dedicated to building imaginative first-person action RPGs in the immersive sim genre. The Austin-based studio will focus on crafting well-realized worlds where players create their own experiences through expressive, emergent game systems. It's especially welcome news following the retirement of Warren Spector , who pioneered the genre alongside Smith with Deus Ex.

Smith's history in the industry stretches back long before Deus Ex. He started as a game tester at Origin Systems , the studio behind the Ultima series led by the Garriott brothers, and rose to become associate producer on Ultima VIII . From there, he moved to Ion Storm's Austin office, where he became the lead designer on Deus Ex and its sequel, Deus Ex: Invisible War .

In 2005, Smith joined Midway as lead designer on BlackSite: Area 51 , before joining Arkane Austin in 2008 under Raphael Colantonio . There, Smith found significant success, serving as co-director of Dishonored (2012) alongside Colantonio and director on Prey (2017), both award-winning titles. Microsoft then acquired Arkane in 2020 as part of its $7.5 billion purchase of Bethesda .

Arkane's games were never major commercial hits, but they all received strong critical praise ahead of Redfall , a co-op vampire combat game (about which I interviewed Smith ahead of launch ) that failed in many ways. Microsoft eventually shut down Arkane Austin in March 2024 , a decision Smith has said he believed was the wrong call.

With Black Pony Immersive, Smith has been joined by COO and Executive Producer Ben Horne , who has collaborated with him for over eight years, most recently at Arkane Austin. In a press release, Smith said:

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. This effort reflects everything we've learned and all we hold dear. My favorite gaming memories come from seeing players approach challenges with creativity, deep-diving into our world-building. We try to reward players for their curiosity and exploration. At our new studio, we're building exactly the kind of single-player games we're most passionate about.

Horne added:

This group has worked together for years, decades in some cases, and is purpose-built to make the ambitious games we love—immersive sims. We share a vision for crafting games that push the limits of player immersion. We can't wait to reveal more soon.

Following Arkane Austin's closure, the pair initially struggled to raise money for a new studio, as funding was drying up across the industry for traditional game development . Speaking to GamesBeat , Horne said:

We spent time talking to many different funding sources. Some of them are VC-related, some institutional investors.

Driven by necessity, they launched Black Pony Immersive on August 4, 2025 , with very little initial funding. Smith said:

I've wanted to start something for a very long time, and the time has never been right exactly. When things are comfortable, when things are working, you don't have the impetus to do it. It's really when things fly apart that you're motivated to do things, and it's in some sense the worst time ever to try to get funding.

He then described the studio's name as a deliberate act of defiance against the industry's current turmoil :

It's just kind of an act of rebellion to fly in the face of where the industry is right now. So many of my friends are suffering, so many people are out of work. So many people have gone through turmoil, but we're going to try to do something against that grain. We're going to try to do something hopeful, and we're going to make narrative-rich single-player immersive sims.

We've been operating for over a year now, so things are going well, and we're just very excited, mostly about the company, the studio culture, and the pitch, and the people that we're getting to work with. It's just 26 people that we absolutely love and really wanted to work with again.

The studio eventually secured backing from a publisher it has not yet named, Horne clarified:

We have a publishing partner that we are excited to talk about at another date. That has just been incredibly supportive... when you're talking to the right people, you know when creative chemistry kind of connects. Your strategies connect, and we feel really fortunate to have that right now, especially during this time.

Smith and Horne are backed by a team of veteran developers pulled from studios including Arkane, Insomniac, Epic, Avalanche, and Volition . Among them is Ricardo Bare , Smith's longtime creative partner dating back to the Prey, Dishonored, and Deus Ex teams, who now serves as Black Pony's design director. The studio is centralized in Austin, with many former Arkane Austin staff based in Texas, while others work remotely from New York, Seattle, Portland, California, and North Carolina.

The studio is staying small on purpose to avoid the issue that other newly established developers encountered: overextending themselves. To that end, Harvey Smith namedropped Sandfall Interactive's Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 as an example of a breakout hit that might reshape the funding landscape for studios like Black Pony Immersive.

What the studio wants to do is pretty clear, as Horne stated:

The thing we are super passionate about is just unapologetically making immersive sims.

That's a tough road, to be sure. As much as I love the genre, immersive sims have proven to be hardly viable from a commercial standpoint . Still, I hope Black Pony Immersive can break this trend and bring the genre back into the mainstream.

About the author : With over two decades of experience in gaming journalism, Alessio Palumbo has led the gaming vertical at Wccftech since August 2015. He started working at a young age for Italian websites like Everyeye.it, Gamestar.it, Nextgame.it, and Multiplayer.it before kickstarting the indie English-language publication Worlds Factory as its founder and Editor in Chief. In the last decade, he has coordinated the overall output of Wccftech's gaming section, managed PR relations, assigned reviews, produced daily news coverage, edited gaming content as needed, and delivered game reviews. Arguably, his trademark content is the long series of exclusive developer interviews that have been cited by Wikipedia and by the biggest news media and gaming publications. His passion for technology also makes him knowledgeable when it comes to gaming hardware and tech. His favorite genres include RPGs, MMORPGs, and action/adventure games.

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