Yesterday, Xbox announced a further 268 job cuts across Halo Studios and other first-party development teams. Although the post detailed a major restructuring that'll see things like Halo move under Activision, the specifics on who and which studios were affected were quite light.
In the past 24 hours, it looks like developers from The Coalition, World's Edge, Treyarch, and Raven Software were amongst the 'other first party' studios to be hit by layoffs.
Only last week, Gears of War: E-Day developer The Coalition celebrated their highly-anticipated shooter going 'gold' ahead of its initial premium early access launch October 1st. Sadly, it's bittersweet for story director Juan Vaca, who posted to LinkedIn that he'd been included in "this round of Microsoft Layoffs".
"I am part of this round of Microsoft Layoffs and am open to new opportunities in games/film/tv. If your team needs a director/storyteller please reach out."
I'm almost always so disappointed logging into LinkedIn these days, as its increasingly full of talented folk looking for work. It's tough. Which is the case for Josh Daniels of Halo Studios, who posted he was "promoted and laid off in the same week". Of course, we knew of Halo Studios' inclusion in the layoffs, as mentioned in Xbox's original memo, but the narrative here is crazy.
"Promoted and laid off in the same week is pretty wild.
I’m one of the many hit by the Halo Studios layoffs. I’ll be taking some offline time today but very much would love to talk to anyone looking for Cinematic Direction or Production roles. Feel free to get in touch if anything looks like I might be a fit."
Age of Empires developer World's Edge has even reportedly lost "nearly half" of its staff following the announcement they'd report to Activision from now on. According to the former creative director Adam Isgreen, he mentioned on a Resetera forum, that "just over half the studio was let go - myself included".
سەرچاوەی فەرمی بە زمانی ئینگلیزی: https://www.purexbox.com/news/2026/09/devs-from-the-coalition-worlds-edge-and-other-xbox-studios-confirm-layoffs2
