World's Edge

Totally.

Uh, Age of Empires developer World's Edge and Rare, who you may recall when they were working with Nintendo, developed Donkey Kong Country, Banjo-Kazooie, GoldenEye 007, but most relevant to Xbox is Sea of Thieves.

They are both, both, uh, um, [lip smacks] uh, World's Edge and Rare are under Activision now, which, uh, I mean, I, uh, sure.

Sure.

[laughs]

Um, additionally, as I guess good news, is we learned that Compulsion, who worked on South of Midnight, Double Fine, which is in charge of several amazing games, but also Psychonauts, and Undead Labs, which is the State of Decay studio, have all gotten their independence from Xbox.

But it's not all great news on that front because Undead Labs had to lay off a bunch of personnel.

Um, apparently World's Edge also had to lay off some people in its transition to Activision.

Um, so yeah, O- Obsidian's under Bethesda now.

Rare and, uh, World's Edge got moved under Activision.

So World's Edge, if you don't know, makes, well, supports Age of Empires.

They weren't like directly making it.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

But, uh, you know, e- even, like, Shannon Loftis, who was previously heading up World's Edge and, and had a big hand in, like, Xbox publishing, like, on LinkedIn today she absolutely roasted Asha Sharma for laying off, like, half of World's Edge team.

That's another big one.

And World's Edge too.

So that's Activision's now taken on Halo.

They've got Rare, they've got World's Edge.

All of a sudden Activision... are getting a lot more say in what a lot of Xbox's studios are doing which obviously they own Activision so they're still doing what Xbox tells them to do but Very powerful.

I mean, one of the reports I did here off the back of this, obviously anecdotal, and then filtered through both my apparently shoddy memory and whatever channel I was listening to this on, it does sound like it's removed that kind of layer of middle management that's allowing teams to communicate and share things more freely.

And then what they're doing after that is they are handing Halo over to Activision.

Activision will expand its remit to World's Edge.

I don't know what World's Edge is.

Is that a dev studio? I think they do Age of Empires.

Not 343 Studios? Uh-uh.

Nope.

Rare-

World's Edge is Age of Empires.

Yeah, here we go.

Meanwhile, Xbox has moved Age of Empires developer World's Edge and Sea of Thieves developer Rare under the Activision umbrella without confirming the legendary British Studios next game.

I was talking about Rare there, not World's Edge.

And I think World's Edge or the Age of Empires developer, their most recent game they were working on, which presumably another Age of Empires game was canceled.

So fucking who knows what's going on there.

but uh any other things any other bits of news in here outside activision obsidian developer grounded outer worlds about is now a bethesda studio as it begins working on a new fallout game no forza motorsport developer turn 10 is being merged with forza horizon and fable developer playground makes sense whatever's left of turn 10 as well because forza motorsport is he dead and candy crush developer king now includes microsoft casual games which operates the likes of solitaire mahjong and minesweeper what operation do you have to do with those things what actual ongoing development i know that they're like live service games now but really i feel like they're probably pretty automated but it makes sense that you would just throw all the casual with the candy crush the ultimate casual game Also signal its intention to close Hellblade developer Ninja Theory after two separate deals for a sale fell through.

So, 268 roles lost at Halo Studios, other first-party studios and Xbox Game Studios management and central functions.

Activision will expand its remit to Rare and Age of Empires studio World's Edge.

That's another new name.

We'll be developing the next Halo title, which will be led by a new purpose-built team.

A consultation process has begun with staff, although the firm is continuing to explore other paths forward.

And Arcane Leon remains in a consultation process, which is expected to continue throughout the end of the year.

We're thrilled to welcome Halo Rare and World's Edge to Activision, said Rob Kostic, president of Activision, in a statement.

It's an honour and a responsibility that we do not take lightly.

Yeah.

Alongside the Age of Empires developer, World's Edge.

World's Edge has also had half of their staff fired and their game cancelled.

Right.

Perhaps even more weird.

Yeah.

Alongside the Age of Empires developer, World's Edge.

World's Edge has also had half of their staff fired and their game cancelled.

Right.

Perhaps even more weird.

Xbox has cut an additional 268 employees across Halo Studios other first-party studios, and the XGS management and central function layers, which Booty says brings the company roughly three-quarters of the way to completing the downsizing plan that put 1,600 people out of work in June.

Activision is now developing the next Halo game with a new purpose build team, and while also oversee Rare and Age of Empire developer World's Edge, Obsidian will be folded into Bethesda and will continue its current projects like Grounded, and the previously announced new Fallout project made in collaboration with Bethesda Game Studios.

Playground and Turn 10 will be formally merged into one studio after being creative and franchise partners for over a decade.

This is something I didn't know.