Black Pony Immersive is the name of a new studio co-launched by industry legend Harvey Smith, alongside his former Arkane colleague Ben Horne, and employing Deus Ex designer Ricardo Bare. Its bold intention is to continue to create immersive simulations at a time when the genre is thought by many to be too risky. And given that these people were part of the creation of Thief: Deadly Shadows, Dishonored, Prey, and of course Deus Ex, they’re exactly the right group to take that risk.
The two co-founders of Black Pony Immersive both previously worked at Arkane Austin, right up until Microsoft mindlessly closed the studio. Their final project was the rather disappointing and short-lived Redfall, but prior to that the trio (and of course the dozens of others working with them) had released an epic string of incredible immersive sims—in Smith and Bare’s case, that goes back as far as the days of Deus Ex maker Ion Storm, and for Smith, right to the start with 1994’s System Shock. All have been relatively quiet since the demise of Arkane Austin, but it turns out Black Pony has been working as a team for over a year now, starting up in secret in August 2025.
Speaking to The Game Business, Smith and Horne defended creating immersive sims in 2026, arguing that despite claims to the contrary, the Dishonored games were financial successes, and that this is a team bringing decades of expertise in the genre. Smith says that claiming a genre can’t succeed often becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, and makes the rather salient point that companies chasing the current trend in gaming are far more prone to failure. Also, being an independent studio, they don’t have to meet the impossible expectations of a behemoth like Microsoft. “We don’t have to seek much approval from anyone else, and that makes us very nimble,” Smith told GamesIndustry.
Describing right now as “the worst time in history” to start a game studio, Smith explains doing it anyway thus: “When things are going pretty well, your impetus to do something crazy is very low.” Black Pony currently has a full-time staff of 26, many of whom previously worked at Arkane, but featuring some new faces too. However, no sites that spoke to the pair have been able to pull out any details of what the studio’s first game is about, beyond that it’s an immersive sim.
In the wake of so many big studio closures, a lot of industry names have launched AA studios with the declaration that they can carry on just as they were before, and all too often these ventures end poorly. However, with the caliber and resumes involved in Black Pony, there’s more room for hope. It also helps that Smith and Horne appear to be approaching their new project without the hubris that is too often present, instead talking about the lessons they’ve learned from a grueling time under Microsoft and their own mistakes, alongside their successes.
