AGDC: Arkane's Smith Reveals iPhone Strategy Game, 'Immersive' First-Person RPG

Author: by Brandon Sheffield, Simon Carless

At Harvey Smith’s keynote at the AGDC's Game Career Summit, the former Ion Storm and Midway designer revealed that Arkane Austin is working on both an "immersive first-person RPG" and an iPhone casual strategy title at the Texas developer. The Austin studio is the U.S. division of French developer Arkane, founded in 1999 and is particularly known for Dark Messiah Of Might & Magic and Arx Fatalis. Its only announced upcoming game is The Crossing, in association with Valve. As part of the talk, which Gamasutra will write up in full at a later date, Smith noted that "Arkane as a company is very focused on immersive first-person experiences," and specifically commented on his core design tenets: “My focus is very much around games like Deus Ex," Smith noted. In addition to his work on the core project at Arkane Austin, Smith has a side project, a "casual strategy game" for the iPhone. The game is apparently significantly into development, but has no concrete deals announced. Talking to Gamasutra after his keynote, Smith mentioned that he was particularly happy in getting back to the kinds of experiences that he helped to design with titles such as Deus Ex and Thief: Deadly Shadows.