Raphaël Colantonio
Raphaël Colantonio is a French video game designer, and was the founder and for 18 years president of Arkane Studios. He has served as creative director on several of Arkane's titles, including co-creator with Harvey Smith for the Dishonored series.
Career
When Colantonio was about 18 years old, at the verge of having to perform mandatory military service that France had at the time, he participated in a contest held by Electronic Arts on knowledge about the Ultima series, which he had been a fan of. He was unaware that the contest was meant for EA to find qualified applicants for a new studio they were setting up in France, and through the contest, Colantonio was hired into EA, helping with establishing their customer support services in France.Arkane Studios
With the introduction of home video game consoles, Colantonio saw a shift in EA to more sports-oriented games, an area he was not interested in, and left, taking a position at Infogrames for a short time. He decided around 1999 that he wanted to start his own studio, and with funding support from his uncle, he and three of his friends founded Arkane Studios in Lyon, France.In June 2017, he departed Arkane, though he stayed with the Lyon branch of Arkane to help with transition to new management, while Harvey Smith oversaw the Austin studio. Colantonio stated that he wanted to spend more time with his son and re-evaluate his goals for the future. In a 2020 interview, he said that part of his reason for leaving was "creative anxiety" around delivering a triple A quality game where it felt like more like making a product instead, as well as wanting to take a break to focus on other matters.