Arkane Studios

 ( Official Website ) 

Arx Fatalis critical praise gave Arkane the opportunity for them to work with Valve to develop a new title on their Source engine, and Colantonio opted to make a sequel, Arx Fatalis 2. However, the poor sales of the first game made it difficult to find a publisher; They were approached by Ubisoft and asked to apply the Arx Fatalis game engine to their Might and Magic. This became Dark Messiah of Might and Magic, released in October 2006. It refined the first-person melee combat of Arx Fatalis with a lesser emphasis on role-playing elements. During this time, Colantonio moved from France to Austin, Texas leaving the main studio in the hands of his colleagues while he set up Arkane Austin in June 2006. Over the next several years, most of the development work was done out of the Lyon studio where production costs were cheaper due to beneficial economic conditions, while the Austin studio was used for establishing relationships with other studios as to generate work-for-hire projects to augment Arkane's own projects.

Between 2006 and 2007, the company was working in conjunction with Valve to develop a spinoff game in the Half-Life series called Ravenholm, expanding on work that Warren Spector's Junction Point Studios had done previously. While Arkane and Valve had worked together to produce about nine to ten levels for a playable alpha build, the project was cancelled, believed to be due to lateness and cost of the project to date. On completion of Dark Messiah, Arkane started development of a new first-person shooter title, The Crossing using the Source engine. Colantonio described The Crossing as "crossplayer", having principally single-player gameplay but influenced by online multiplayer elements. The title had a budget of around $15 million, which made it difficult to find a publisher that did not include strict rules and requirements in the contract. While Colantonio had finally found one offer that was satisfactory to him, the studio was approached by EA to help work on LMNO, a game it was developing with Steven Spielberg; as EA's offer was more valuable and more stable, Colantonio decided to cancel The Crossing to focus the studio on LMNO. However, about two years after this, EA opted to cancel LMNO as well, forcing Arkane to take up assisting roles for a few years. This including developing the multiplayer component of Activision's , and helping with "design, animation, and art" for 2K Marin's BioShock 2.

While trying to grow the Austin studio, Colantonio met with Harvey Smith, a game developer that he had met earlier in his career and kept in contact with. Colantonio and Smith recognised they had several similar talents and initially felt that the two of them working in the same studio would be too troublesome, but they then considered if they were working on the same game together how their talents would mesh well. They quickly devised a "ninja pitch" that would tie into the basis of Dishonored, and worked out how they would share responsibilities at the studio. Smith formally came on board Arkane in 2008.