Xbox's Matt Booty divulges some of the thinking that went into the heartbreaking decision to shut down Tango Gameworks alongside three other Bethesda studios in May. As Xbox's sole first-party Japanese studio, Tango was best known for its Evil Within survival horror franchise Tango's first-person action horror Ghostwire: Tokyo released as a timed PS5 exclusive before coming to Xbox a year later. Most recently, Tango surprise dropped Hi-Fi Rush in early 2023 to high praise.

Just last month, Xbox announced its closure of four Bethesda studios, causing a storm of outrage and confusion among the Xbox community. Redfall developer Arkane Austin, mobile developer Alpha Dog Studios, and Roundhouse Studios were all disappointingly shuttered; most puzzling was the closure of Tango Gameworks, which had delivered the near universally praised cartoon-styled rhythm action game, Hi-Fi Rush, only 16 months prior. Xbox's dissolution of Tango Gameworks sent shockwaves throughout the industry, sending the message that studios could be hit with layoffs and closures even after releasing successful and beloved games.

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In an interview with Variety, the head of Xbox Game Studios, Matt Booty, talked about some of the reasoning that went into shuttering its only Japanese game studio, Tango Gameworks. After reinforcing his praise of Hi-Fi Rush, mentioning that it's still considered a success in Xbox's book, Booty expressed that the decision was made with the studio's future in mind more so than its past successes. He mentioned looking at the state of the studio's leadership as a determining factor in whether Xbox keeps a studio alive, stating "...it's as much a forward-looking situation as much as it is looking back at one certain game...And while there may have been factors and situations that previously led to success, they may not all still be in place as you look at what you're doing going forward."

Matt Booty Shares Reasoning Behind Tango Gameworks Closure

Here, Matt Booty makes it clear that Xbox unfortunately didn't have enough faith in Tango's current leadership to keep the studio open. It's very likely that Booty is softly referencing the departure of Tango's founding member, Shinji Mikami, who left the studio one month after Hi-Fi Rush was released, in February 2023. Before establishing Tango Gameworks in 2010, Mikami was previously responsible for projects like the original Resident Evil, Resident Evil 4, and Dino Crisis; such a background is abundantly evident in Tango's Evil Within duology. Despite Tango's horror mastermind leaving, it's hard to believe that the studio wouldn't have found more critical success with a Hi-Fi Rush sequel, considering the game's director, John Johanes, remained at the studio until its unfortunate end last month.

Despite now having just a tad more insight about the reasoning behind such a puzzling decision, Tango's closure still sends a scary message to Xbox's other stable of studios, as well as studio leadership who may be considering departing from their studios or retiring. Many of Xbox's studios do have incredibly enticing projects lined up for the next few years, such as Compulsion Games' South of Midnight and The Initiative's Perfect Dark, which have just received new gameplay footage at Xbox's recent games showcase.

Hi-Fi Rush

Hi-Fi Rush is a third-person rhythm action game from Tango Gameworks, the same developers that worked on The Evil Within series.

Platform(s)

Xbox Series X , Xbox Series S , PC , PS5

Released

January 25, 2023

Developer(s)

Tango Gameworks

Publisher(s)

Bethesda

Genre(s)

Action