Veteran game designer Harvey Smith has unveiled Black Pony Immersive, a new Austin based studio focused on creating single player first person action RPGs in the immersive sim genre.
Smith is best known for his work on Deus Ex, Dishonored, Dishonored 2, and Prey. The new studio marks his return to development after the closure of Arkane Austin and comes at a difficult time for traditional game funding.
Black Pony Immersive says its goal is to build detailed worlds where players can approach problems in different ways through interconnected systems, exploration, and emergent gameplay.
Black Pony Immersive is focused entirely on immersive sims
Smith has been joined by COO and Executive Producer Ben Horne, who worked with him for more than eight years, including at Arkane Austin.
The studio is deliberately centered around the type of games both developers have spent much of their careers making.
| Black Pony Immersive detail | Information |
|---|---|
| Founder | Harvey Smith |
| COO and Executive Producer | Ben Horne |
| Location | Austin, Texas |
| Team size | 26 people |
| Main genre | Immersive sim |
| Game type | Single player first person action RPGs |
| Studio launch | August 4, 2025 |
| Publisher | Secured but not yet announced |
Smith said the team wants to reward curiosity, exploration, and player creativity rather than force everyone through the same solutions.
That approach closely follows the design philosophy behind games such as Deus Ex, Dishonored, and Prey.
Smith's career goes back more than three decades
Smith began his career at Origin Systems, initially working as a game tester before becoming an associate producer on Ultima VIII.
He later joined Ion Storm Austin, where he became lead designer on Deus Ex and also worked on Deus Ex: Invisible War.
In 2005, he moved to Midway before joining Arkane Austin in 2008.
At Arkane, Smith became one of the studio's most recognizable creative leaders. He worked as co director on Dishonored and later directed Prey, both of which became highly regarded examples of systemic game design.
Microsoft acquired Arkane as part of its Bethesda purchase, but Arkane Austin was shut down in 2024 following the commercial failure of Redfall.
Smith has previously said he believed closing the studio was the wrong decision.
Funding the new studio was difficult
After Arkane Austin closed, Smith and Horne explored several possible funding routes, including venture capital and institutional investment.
They eventually started Black Pony Immersive on August 4, 2025 with limited initial funding.
Smith said the wider industry environment made starting a new studio especially difficult, but also gave him the motivation to finally do it.
The team has now been operating for more than a year and has secured a publishing partner, although that company has not yet been named.
The team includes veterans from several major studios
Black Pony Immersive currently has 26 developers.
The group includes people with experience at Arkane, Insomniac, Epic, Avalanche, and Volition.
Ricardo Bare, who previously worked with Smith across projects including Prey, Dishonored, and Deus Ex, is serving as design director.
The studio is centered in Austin, but some employees are working remotely from locations including New York, Seattle, Portland, California, and North Carolina.
The studio wants to stay small
Black Pony Immersive is intentionally avoiding rapid expansion.
Smith and Horne want to keep the team relatively compact rather than scale too aggressively and create financial pressure.
That approach reflects broader concerns across the industry, where several newly formed studios have struggled after hiring quickly before securing enough long term funding.
Smith pointed to Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 as an example of how smaller teams can potentially build successful, ambitious games without following the largest production models.
The studio's current direction is clear: it wants to make immersive sims without trying to reshape them into a more commercially conventional genre.
A new game is already in development
Black Pony Immersive has not yet revealed its first game.
However, the studio says it is working on a narrative focused single player immersive sim built around expressive systems and player choice.
That makes the project especially notable at a time when major publishers have often treated immersive sims as commercially risky.
Smith's return also comes shortly after Warren Spector announced his retirement, making Black Pony Immersive one of the more interesting new studios carrying forward the design traditions associated with Deus Ex and Dishonored.
For now, the team is keeping its project under wraps, but the studio's direction suggests players can expect a game built around experimentation, exploration, and multiple ways to solve problems.
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