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Harvey Smith and Ben Horne launch Black Pony Immersive, a new studio focused on immersive sims
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Deus Ex and Dishonored designer Harvey Smith has co-founded Black Pony Immersive with longtime collaborator Ben Horne, staffed by veterans from Arkane, Insomniac, Epic, Avalanche, and Volition.
This is a single-source story about a studio formation with no announced project, so the practical impact for anyone building or operating software is essentially nil today. The studio's relevance is concentrated in its personnel: it gathers developers from the immersive sim tradition at a moment when the genre's established studios have been disrupted by closures and layoffs.
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Black Pony Immersive is based in Austin, Texas with remote workers across the United States and is focused on narrative-rich first-person action RPGs.
Ricardo Bare, creative director on Redfall, Prey, and Dishonored, joins as design director alongside staff from Insomniac, Epic, Avalanche, and Volition.
No specific project has been announced, and the studio's only stated direction is immersive sims with emergent gameplay and original worlds.
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