Tango Gameworks Is (Hopefully) Saved

But the IP situation is rather eyebrow-raising

Photo taken by the author.

Earlier this year, in a move that stunned the gaming world and convinced me that all of Microsoft’s talk about loving the creativity and the art behind games is nothing but hot air, the giant tech conglomerate closed down a number of their own high-profile studios. Among these was Tango Gameworks, the celebrated and reasonably successful creator of such titles as The Evil Within, Ghostwire: Tokyo, and last year’s surprise release hit Hi-Fi Rush.

Now however, just a few months later and in an equally shocking move, Korean company Krafton has apparently purchased the studio with the intent to keep it active and open, engaged in developing new games. It’s not completely clear from the official press release on the matter how many staff were retained, nor how many staff got new jobs in the intervening months since Microsoft originally dumped their only Japanese team. When that disappointing closure happened, some of the key creative leads behind Tango’s non Hi-Fi Rush titles had already departed for other new pastures and projects, which Microsoft tacitly admitted was part of their reasoning behind not retaining the team.

That theoretically left the core people and talented brains behind Hi-Fi Rush still in the building, so if Krafton was able to get all or…