Xbox gamers risk losing beloved franchises following historic corporate collapse
Roughly 3,200 jobs will be lost across the Xbox workforce by the end of this financial year, and that is likely significantly impact some fan favorite franchises that gamers have historically loved on the platform.
While many studios under the Xbox umbrella have experienced layoffs, with CEO Asha Sharma outlining the 'painful' changes that have been made to the leading gaming brand, a handful of development teams have been completely cut loose and either gone independent or been put up for sale by the company.
Both Compulsion Games and Double Fine Productions will now be operated independently, returning to their previous status before being acquired by Xbox, whereas Ninja Theory and Undead Labs have sold to undisclosed buyers — something that has concerned fans considering recent announcements from the studios.
Which Xbox games could be at risk?
Arguably the most pressing issue to emerge for gamers from these layoffs is the future of State of Decay 3, which is currently scheduled to release next year and has been shown off for a while now.
Developer Undead Labs has asserted that the game is 'still coming' in a statement following the job cuts at Xbox, adding that "the team is working hard and our commitment to this community has never been stronger," as per Pure Xbox.
Advert
The same thankfully appears to be true for Senua – the next game in the Hellblade series that was unveiled last month – with Xbox asserting that the new ownership of Ninja Theory will provide funding "to complete and grow" the title.
Both Compulsion Games and Double Fine don't have any publicly announced games in the pipeline right now, but a statement from the latter appears to suggest that something could soon be revealed.
Double Fine asserted that the studio "will share more news soon on what comes next," and it joins Compulsion Games in retaining ownership of existing IP that was made both before and during their time at Xbox, including titles like Psychonauts, We Happy Few, and South of Midnight from the two studios.
What other studios were affected by layoffs?
While the aforementioned four studios were the only ones to depart from Xbox completely, layoffs impacted the company en masse and it could reduce the likelihood of receiving new entries in some of iconic franchises, and end support for existing popular games.
As reported by Eurogamer, Doom developer and general games industry titan id Software appears to have seen 136 people lose their jobs, leaving the team with just 49 people and wiping out 'decades of knowledge' in the process.
A new expansion for Doom: The Dark Ages was only released this week, and the team reportedly had plans for a 'John Wick-style' game alonside a new game in the Perfect Dark franchise, yet both of those are now likely impossible considering the scale of the layoffs.
For id Software Principal VFX Artist Derek Best – who was impacted by the recent layoffs – revealed on his LinkedIn that he believes the team will be 'relegated to support studio size', which is a tragic loss for the industry as a whole.
Additionally, as per VGC, 213 employees have lost their jobs at ZeniMax Online – the studio behind The Elder Scrolls Online – with a further 166 employees being laid off from ZeniMax Media.
This seemingly represents aroudn half of the active development force working on the game, putting the future of the MMO in doubt, especially after ZeniMax Online previously suffered similarly devastating layoffs last year.