Xbox's Restructuring Continues, Resulting in 268 Further Job Losses

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I would say if you've been living under a rock, you may not have heard of the problems befalling Xbox Game Studios lately, but I think at this point, even the rocks know. Xbox has today announced that they are now roughly three-quarters of the way through their previously promised restructuring, with 268 further job losses, which largely seem to hit Halo Studio, along with significant changes to how their studios are organized.

Here are the main points listed in the email sent to Xbox employees:

• Activision will now take control of World's Edge (Age of Empires) and Rare (Project Dark, Sea of Thieves).
• A new team within Activision will be responsible for developing Halo games going forward.
• Halo Studios will continue to exist to support existing games already released.
• Bethesda will take control of Obsidian (Grounded) and will work on the new Fallout project together.
• King and Microsoft Casual Games will merge.
• Playground Games (Forza Horizon, Fable) and Turn 10 (Forza Motorsport) will fully merge.
• Compulsion (We Happy Few), Double Fine (Psychonauts), and Undead Labs (State of Decay) are now independent studios and will continue operating.
• Ninja Theory (Hellblade) had 2 agreements to continue operating with other companies, but both fell through, with the studio now likely to close.
• Arkane is still in talks with Xbox, and likely will be until 2027.
• 268 Jobs have been "eliminated" as a result of this restructuring.

By the looks of things, the 268 jobs are largely at Halo Studios, seeing as the subsidiary appears to be relegated to just a "support" team to keep Halo Infinite and Halo Master Chief Collection patched. Other first-party studios and Xbox Game Studios management are also apparently affected to some degree.

These 268 jobs do not include any potential job losses from the closure of Ninja Theory, which looks to have around 100 employees.

Source: Xbox

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