Xbox laid off 268 more employees Tuesday and began consultations on closing Ninja Theory, the British studio behind the BAFTA-winning Hellblade series, after two separate attempts to sell it fell through.
The cuts eliminate roles at Halo Studios and other first-party teams, along with Xbox Game Studios’ management and central functions group, according to an internal memo from Executive Vice President and Chief Content Officer Matt Booty, published in full on Xbox Wire. Booty said the moves bring the division “roughly three-quarters of the way through” the restructuring it announced in July.
Read: Xbox Cuts 3,200 Jobs and Sells Off Four Studios in Its “Most Significant Restructure” Ever
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Activision takes over Halo going forward, building a new team kept separate from its Call of Duty work, while also picking up Rare and World’s Edge; a small team remains at Halo Studios to keep supporting the community and live games. One person caught in those cuts, Halo Studios cinematic director Josh Daniels, had been promoted just days earlier. “Promoted and laid off in the same week is pretty wild,” he wrote on LinkedIn, adding that he was open to hearing about cinematic direction or production roles elsewhere.
Bethesda adds Obsidian to its roster, King takes on Microsoft‘s casual games unit, and Playground Games and Turn 10 are combining into a single studio built around Forza and Fable.
The Cambridge studio, maker of “Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice,” joined Compulsion Games, Double Fine and Undead Labs on the divestiture list back in July; the other three have since spun out successfully, with Undead Labs landing a new publisher and keeping State of Decay 3 on track for a Game Pass day-one release.
Ninja Theory didn’t get the same outcome — Booty told staff Xbox will “begin consultation with employees on a proposed closure while continuing to explore other paths forward.”
Arkane’s Lyon studio is going through a separate consultation process of its own, one French law requires before Microsoft can decide its fate, with a decision expected by year’s end.
