At least part of Old World was composed by Christopher Tin, who did the title music for Civ 4 and Civ 6 (and his other works are damned good too).

What's the reason for disabling chat? You just want money and don't want to hear from people or give them a chance to speak? How would you feel if publishers didn't let you talk with them?

https://arcengames.com/ai-war-2-hooded-horse-and-arcen-announce-partnership-and-forward-fiction-ai-war-books/

"Hooded Horse and Arcen Announce Partnership

Hey! Chris M. McElligott Park here, founder of Arcen Games. Double announcement today, involving two new partners and a lot of awesome staffing news, as well.

Hooded Horse Partnership

First off: Arcen is happy to join the Hooded Horse “stable,” working on an untitled project to be fully announced later. This title is set in the sci-fi Arcenverse, and has strategic elements, but further details will need to wait for video. For the moment, please enjoy the following in-engine preproduction screenshots.

https://i.imgur.com/YGmX7ga.png

https://i.imgur.com/r580wnU.png

Staff Again!

I’m taking the usual role of game director and code lead, but for the first time in almost half a decade, I won’t be so alone. This is a really big deal to me, and one of many reasons I’m excited to be working with Tim Bender and the others at Hooded Horse.

Many of the long-time AI War 2 collaborators are now joining fulltime, including Willard “Badger” Davis, George “Zeus” Tibbitts, and Spencer “StarKelp” Ferguson. Joining in a part-time capacity are Daniel “Daniexpert” Garcevic, Ethan “Democracy” Wong, and Quinn Beltramo.

Familiar faces Pablo Vega (composer), and Dan “Blue” Mann (artist/environment) also take key roles."

Interesting. Nice news. Always liked the Arcen games :D