Dishonored Co-Creator Harvey Smith Unveils Black Pony Immersive, a New Studio Built for Immersive Sims

Some studio closures never quite feel final. When Microsoft shut down Arkane Austin in May 2024, the reaction across the industry was less "that's a shame" and more "someone will get that band back together." On Tuesday, someone did. Harvey Smith, co-creator of Dishonored and lead designer on the original Deus Ex, announced Black Pony Immersive, a new independent studio he leads as CEO and creative director alongside COO Ben Horne, who was production director at Arkane Austin.

The name is not subtle, and that is the point. Black Pony exists to make immersive sims, the first person games built on simulation and player choice that Arkane spent two decades refining. Horne says the group is purpose built to make "the ambitious games we love," and Smith has been just as direct about why he started over rather than settling in somewhere established. In his telling, watching everything explode made the leap feel possible, and the team believed it could do things better on its own.

A quiet year and a familiar roster

The announcement is new, but the studio is not. Black Pony quietly opened its doors in August 2025 and spent a full year building before saying a word in public. Today it employs 26 full time developers, all based in the United States, supported by contractors around the world.

The roster reads like an immersive sim family reunion. Most of the team comes from Arkane, with credits across Dishonored, Prey and Deathloop, and they are joined by developers from Insomniac, Epic Games, Avalanche and Volition. Ricardo Bare, a designer on the original Deus Ex who worked beside Smith for decades, is on board, as is fellow Ion Storm veteran Monte Martinez. These are people who have shipped this exact kind of game together before, which matters, because immersive sims are notoriously hard to build with a team that has not.

What they are making, and why it matters

The first project is still under wraps. What the studio will say is that it is a single player, narrative rich game with expressive, emergent systems at its core, set in a well realized world where players create their own stories. No platforms, no window, no title. Given the year of quiet groundwork, we would guess a proper reveal is not imminent, and honestly, we are fine with that.

The timing carries some poetry. Just two days earlier, Warren Spector announced his retirement after 44 years, closing the book on the designer who directed Deus Ex with Smith at his side. One generation of the genre steps away the same week another plants a new flag. Immersive sims have spent years being declared commercially doomed, yet the people who make them keep refusing to stop. A 26 person studio will not ship tomorrow, but with this much specific, hard won experience in one room, Black Pony is worth keeping an eye on.