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

Hooded horses are horses that wear a type of headgear called a hood or blinker hood during races or training. The hood covers the horse's head and ears, with small openings for the eyes, and is designed to limit the horse's field of vision. You can learn more about horse racing on DuelDuQuinte.