Harvey Smith, the acclaimed creator behind games like Dishonored and Deus Ex, alongside former Arkane production director Ben Horne, has announced the formation of a new studio: Black Pony Immersive. The fledgling company is dedicated to creating new immersive simulation games, a genre that includes classics such as Deus Ex, Thief, Prey, and System Shock. This endeavor is born from a shared vision to create hopeful and mysterious games in a challenging industry landscape.
Smith and Horne established Black Pony Immersive following the closure of Arkane Austin by Microsoft in 2024. The intervening year was spent seeking funding, a process Smith described as enlightening about potential partners' priorities. "You talk to VCs and they start talking about NFTs or AI, and we’re like, ‘Guys, best of luck.’ You talk to some and they’re like, ‘No, no, we’re not into that at all. We like what you’re about, the fundamentals of your game, but our people are hoping to see, uh, times one thousand return within two years,’” Smith recounted. Horne added that the rejections sharpened their focus on finding partners aligned with their core values rather than simply rushing to get off the ground.
Ultimately, Black Pony Immersive secured sufficient funding to establish a 26-person, fully remote studio. Smith emphasized the "pretty much no-strings-attached" nature of their funding, allowing them to focus on their creative vision. However, this leaner budget means operating without the extensive resources previously available at larger studios. "The downside is you don’t have endless money," Smith explained. "If you need more money or more people or better chairs, you can’t just snap your fingers and do that. We don’t have any of that, we’re a scrappy little team."
Smith expressed a desire to emulate the success of foundational studios like Looking Glass, Origin, Ion Storm, and Arkane itself. He addressed potential criticisms of hubris by reflecting on past failures, which he believes are more instructive than success. "I’ve failed hard a couple of times. And it teaches you more than success. Everybody calling you brilliant and loving your shit doesn’t really teach you anything, other than it feels good to be called brilliant." He characterizes the studio's drive not as arrogance or mere confidence, but as "defiance" and "an act of rebellion to try to do something hopeful in times like this."
A poignant coincidence marked the studio's announcement: the day before Black Pony Immersive was revealed, Warren Spector, a close friend and mentor to Smith and a key figure in the immersive sim genre, announced his retirement. Smith, who worked with Spector on System Shock, expressed mixed emotions, celebrating Spector's career while lamenting the departure of such a talented figure from active development.
Smith’s creative philosophy centers on making games that resonate deeply with players long after completion, creating experiences that "get into their fucking heads, and they talk about for 10, 20 years." He cited the example of a Dishonored-themed wedding, where he and voice actor April Stewart and sound designer Thomas Mitton collaborated to create custom lines for the game's in-world artifact, the Heart, for the couple. This dedication to player connection is a driving force. "It’s very powerful because you’re not doing this shit for yourself. Nobody’s writing a novel and then pitching it into the fucking fireplace. It’s so hard to write a book, and it’s so hard to make a game. So you’re doing it for this connection between humans."
While Black Pony Immersive is keeping details about its current project under wraps, Smith shared his ambition for the game to recapture a sense of "delicious" mystery, a quality he feels is rare in modern game design. He pointed to titles like Inscryption and Elden Ring as examples of games that successfully evoke genuine wonder and surprise. "Doing something that is magical like that, that even if you’ve played games for 30, 40, 50 years, it feels novel in some way, it feels special, it feels like someone loved this and gave it their all, it feels like it has a voice, people still talk about it in 10 years. That would make me feel successful."
Smith aims for his studio's work to foster the kind of shared experiences that Doug Church, a project lead on System Shock, described: "When a game really works, people get together later and tell stories as if it actually happened. As if they played football, or went to war, together." The ultimate goal is to create that "joy, that magic between people."