Tango will continue developing Hi-Fi Rush 2 under new owner

We’ve gotten more details on what Tango Gameworks was working on when it was shut down by Microsoft earlier this year. It was later bought and revitalized by Krafton.

Maria Park, Krafton head of corporate development, said in a GamesIndustry.biz interview that Tango had been working on Hi-Fi Rush 2 when the news came down from its parent company. Not only that, but the team had a six-month-old build to show Krafton while negotiating the deal. A report had already revealed Tango had pitched the sequel, but it wasn’t clear if it was in development at that time.

Park explained that work on the sequel is on hold for now until the IP acquisition goes through, but the new Krafton-owned Tango will continue development after that.

“We won’t really rush to the market just to deliver a sequel. We want to make sure that the sequel is actually at a quality level that surpasses the community’s expectations,” Park said.

A team at Tango was also working on The Evil Within anniversary content. This spiritual successor to Resident Evil, which was also spearheaded by Tango founder Shinji Mikami, released on October 14, 2014. The series is often overlooked, but it packs in incredible atmosphere and a unique mix of gameplay genres — from survival horror to open-world exploration. The sequel, The Evil Within 2, is celebrating its seventh anniversary on October 13.

However, Park reiterated that the company is only acquiring the rights to Hi-Fi Rush and not any of Tango’s other properties. The Evil Within and Ghostwire: Tokyo are staying with Microsoft. This has been the messaging from Krafton since it announced it had bought the studio.

“It would’ve been great to get all the IPs,” Park said. “Knowing Microsoft’s direction with the IP sale, we didn’t want to push too far with this acquisition, so we primarily had Hi-Fi Rush under discussion because it would complicate the process and elongate the entire negotiation process.”

Microsoft unceremoniously closed Tango, alongside Arkane Austin, Alpha Dog Studios, and internal support studio Roundhouse Games, in May to focus on “prioritizing high-impact titles and further investing in Bethesda’s portfolio of blockbuster games and beloved worlds,” according to head of Xbox Game Studios Matt Booty. These former Bethesda studios became Xbox ones after the latter company purchased Bethesda parent ZeniMax Media in 2021.

The fate of Hi-Fi Rush was of particular interest because it had released in 2023 to critical acclaim and high player counts thanks to Xbox Game Pass (Microsoft has never released sales numbers for the game). It had also just been added to the PlayStation 5.