Thief designer Randy Smith Evergreen refused to work for Xbox because it would be like 'walking past some stakes with human skulls on them' and pretending 'it's probably fine in this direction'

Randy Smith Evergreen, a former game designer, turned down an offer to work for Xbox due to concerns over the company's track record of shutting down studios. He had been pitching a nonviolent RPG inspired by the Looking Glass games he had worked on in the 1990s, about a young woman searching for her missing uncle in Eastern Europe.

However, publishers were not interested in his project. Microsoft approached him when his funding search was at its most challenging, and he reluctantly accepted the offer, partly due to his hesitation to work for a Microsoft-backed studio. Smith Evergreen believed that Microsoft's history of quickly shutting down studios was a warning sign.

He had many friends who worked at Arkane Austin, the studio behind Dishonored and Prey, but the studio was dissolved by Microsoft shortly after acquiring it. Smith Evergreen felt that joining Xbox would be like walking past stakes with human skulls on them and thinking it's probably fine in that direction. Eventually, he founded a new indie studio to work on an unannounced game, which evolved from his initial nonviolent RPG pitch.