Harvey Smith, the veteran designer behind Deus Ex and Dishonored, has launched a new independent studio called Black Pony Immersive.
Smith founded the studio alongside former Arkane executive producer Ben Horne, with longtime collaborator Ricardo Bare is also on the team. Black Pony currently has around 26 developers, including veterans of Arkane, Insomniac Games, Epic Games, Avalanche Studios, and Volition.
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What is Black Pony Immersive?
Black Pony Immersive is focused on single-player first-person action RPGs and immersive sims, bringing Smith back to the style of systemic game design associated with Deus Ex and Dishonored.
The studio wants to build detailed worlds where players can combine mechanics, explore freely, and solve problems in different ways rather than follow one prescribed route.
The studio’s mission
Black Pony makes its priorities particularly clear in the mission statement published on its official website:
“Black Pony Immersive exists to design and develop imaginative, narrative-rich games set in well-realized worlds, where players create their own memorable experiences with expressive, emergent game systems.
Through the looking glass, we’re chasing a dream of mystery, meaning, and creative play.”
That philosophy lines up closely with Smith’s previous work. Deus Ex was built around multiple approaches to combat, stealth, dialogue, hacking, and exploration, while Dishonored gave players supernatural abilities and open-ended levels designed to support experimentation.
What is Black Pony making?
The studio has not announced its first game yet.
What is clear is the direction: Black Pony wants to make narrative-heavy, systemic single-player games where the player’s own decisions and combinations of mechanics can produce unexpected results.
If you played Deus Ex, Dishonored, or Arkane’s other immersive sims, you know that keeping an eye on even before its first project has a name is worth your while.
If you haven’t yet, the Dishonored series remains one of the clearest modern examples of the design philosophy the new studio says it wants to pursue.
Dishonored 2
Release Date: November 11, 2016
Genres: Shooter, Role-playing (RPG), Adventure
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