Harvey Smith and Ben Horne are taking an unusually independent route back to the immersive sim. After the closure of Arkane Austin by Microsoft in 2024, the pair began forming Black Pony Immersive, a new studio dedicated to a game inspired by the tradition of Deus Ex, Thief, Prey and System Shock.
The studio now has 26 people and funding that gives it considerable creative freedom. Its project remains unannounced, but Smith’s ambitions are clear: make something hopeful, surprising and memorable in a genre many publishers view as a difficult proposition.
For more stories about the people and ideas shaping games, explore RETROCADE’s arcade news and editorial coverage.
From studio closure to a new beginning
Smith and Horne were devastated when Arkane Austin shut down. Even so, the experience quickly gave them a sense of direction. Horne approached Smith with the idea of starting a studio, and Smith immediately understood what he was about to suggest.
Black Pony Immersive was formally established roughly a year later, with its public unveiling following another year after that. The intervening period was spent speaking with potential financiers and working out which partners could support the kind of game they wanted to make.
Those conversations exposed a major mismatch between the studio’s goals and much of the investment market. Some potential backers focused on NFTs or artificial intelligence. Others liked the fundamentals of the proposed game but expected an exceptionally rapid return, potentially multiplying their investment by a thousand within two years.
Horne says the repeated rejections were useful because they clarified what the team would and would not compromise. The priority was not simply to launch a company as quickly as possible; it was to build this particular kind of game with these particular people.
Eventually, Black Pony secured enough support to create its 26-person team. Smith describes the arrangement as largely free of strings, allowing the studio to make day-to-day decisions according to its own judgement.
A smaller team, a bigger risk
Independence also means working without the resources available inside a major publisher. Smith points out that the studio cannot instantly add staff, find extra funding or replace basic office equipment when a need arises. Black Pony is fully remote, and during the conversation he was standing rather than sitting because the budget did not stretch to furniture.
That modest setup is part of the challenge. Smith hopes the team can achieve something comparable to the influential work associated with Looking Glass, Origin, Ion Storm, Arkane and Raphael Colantonio, despite operating on a much smaller scale than a conventional AAA production.
Smith does not present the decision as blind confidence. He says previous failures taught him more than periods when critics and players considered him brilliant. What drives him now is closer to defiance: choosing to make something hopeful during an unsettled period for the games industry feels like an act of rebellion.
For readers considering their own dedicated setup, RETROCADE’s arcade machine buying guide covers the practical decisions involved in choosing hardware, space and format.
A mentor and a changing era
The announcement of Black Pony Immersive arrived immediately after Warren Spector announced his retirement. The timing was accidental, but it gave the reveal an emotional resonance: one major chapter in immersive-sim history was closing as another generation prepared to continue the tradition.
Spector has been an important mentor and friend to Smith since Smith’s first games-industry role as lead tester on System Shock. They worked together for nine years, and Smith remains deeply grateful for Spector’s patience, energy and guidance.
Smith says the industry’s current turmoil makes it difficult to watch experienced developers repeatedly fight for their projects. At the same time, he recognises that Spector, now 70, has earned the right to step away. The admiration and sadness surrounding the retirement reflect how strongly creative relationships can shape a career.
Why player connection still matters
Smith’s motivation is not limited to systems, technology or commercial success. He wants to create games that stay in people’s minds for decades and inspire the kind of personal stories players continue sharing long after the credits.
He recalls a particularly meaningful example from Dishonored. Two fans planned a wedding themed around the game, and the team was asked to create a special message using the Heart, the supernatural object that comments on characters and locations throughout Dunwall.
Smith wrote new lines in the Heart’s voice and contacted April Stewart, who performed Jessamine Kaldwin and the Heart in the game. Stewart and her partner recorded the material on an iPhone. Smith then asked sound designer Thomas Mitton to add the beating-heart effect, reverberation, wind and echoing vocal treatment.
At the ceremony, one of the couple held a handmade Dishonored Heart while the recording played. The speech examined one partner from the Heart’s perspective, asking whether the two people were a suitable match. Even Horne, Smith’s colleague at Black Pony, had not heard the story before the interview.
For Smith, moments like this explain why game development remains worthwhile. Making a game can be less predictable and less financially sensible than other work, but it creates a direct human connection between the people who build an experience and those who carry it into their lives.
That same connection is part of what makes a physical arcade cabinet special. RETROCADE’s arcade machines bring games into a shared space where players can create stories together.
The appeal of the unknown
Black Pony is not ready to explain what its game is about, and Smith is comfortable with that restraint. One of his central interests is mystery, a quality he believes modern games often weaken by explaining their systems, interfaces and objectives too clearly.
He points to Inscryption, the 2021 deck-building game, as an example of a modern release that preserves genuine uncertainty. Its unusual atmosphere made discovery feel exciting rather than simply instructional.
Smith also cites Elden Ring. Although earlier Souls games had failed to draw him in, wandering through Limgrave, hearing the music and wondering what lay beyond the next point on the horizon gave him a persistent sense of possibility.
He wants Black Pony’s project to produce a similar feeling of wonder for experienced players, including people who have spent 30, 40 or 50 years playing games. In his view, success would mean creating something with a distinct voice and enough care behind it that players are still discussing it a decade later.
Smith remembers sitting beside the designers of FTL at an awards ceremony and wanting to spend the whole evening recounting specific adventures from the game. That instinct connects with an idea from Doug Church, the project lead on System Shock: when a game truly works, people later describe their experiences as though they lived through them together.
The goal is the shared joy and sense of magic that turns a game into a story people tell one another.
That is the promise behind Black Pony Immersive: not a revealed feature list or a familiar franchise announcement, but a small team attempting to make an ambitious immersive sim with room for uncertainty, emotional connection and player-driven stories.
For another hands-on route into interactive entertainment, browse RETROCADE’s DIY arcade kits and explore how a personal games project can take shape.
Leave a Reply