Buckle up, folks, because the insider chatter is that Xbox is preparing to announce the next wave of its planned layoffs, as well as make big changes to how its studios are being handled.
As part of these moves, NateTheHate claims that the Halo franchise will be moved to ABK (Activision-Blizzard-King). Interestingly, in another comment he specifies that only the IP itself is being put under the purview of ABK, not Halo Studios. Is this is a sign that Halo Studios could be shuttered? It could also be a way to put the studio under new leadership.
The other chatter is that other studios and teams will be moved around and consolidated as part of a major restructuring effort.
The Information is reporting that the next round of layoffs is also going to occur/be announced today alongside studios being consolidated. These are part of the previously announced 3200 layoffs, so we were already aware of them, although that hardly makes it feel any better.
Jaso Schreier also said something similiar on the 8-4 podcast. At around 1:24.50 he states outright that “The Blizzard layoffs are coming and imminent.” He specifies this is not in any way a reaction to Blizzcon as everything shown there was already planned well ahead of the announced layoffs.
My personal opinion is that Halo Studios will be gutted but will survive, essentially being a Halo support studio whose job is to help other teams make the next generation of Halo. Whether that’s worse than being shuttered, I don’t know.
We will find out in the next few days if any of this is true.
WGB 