Microsoft continues a major reboot of its gaming division. Halo Studios was one of the teams hardest hit as part of the second wave. The announcement contains several interesting points regarding the future of the Halo franchise in general (and the studio in particular).
Microsoft announced that it will lay off a total of 268 employees in a new wave of layoffs, many of whom are from Halo Studios. However, the studio itself has not yet closed. Xbox said it will retain a “small team” to continue supporting existing Halo games and grow community engagement.
At the same time, the development of new games in the “Halo” series has also been transferred to Activision Publishing. Microsoft announced that it will form a separate team within the company to start developing the new part of the shooting game. It’s important to stress that this team will not include current Halo developers, nor the team working on Call of Duty.
Our goal is to strengthen our franchises and games by reducing the number of business units, integrating teams that already work closely together, and focusing our publishing expertise.
As part of the new structure, Activision will also control World’s Edge and Rare studios.