Microsoft’s latest round of 268 Xbox layoffs has reportedly affected employees across several major development teams, including Halo Studios, The Coalition, World’s Edge and Treyarch. Microsoft confirmed the overall cuts on September 22 but did not publish a complete studio-by-studio breakdown, saying only that roles were being eliminated across Halo Studios, other first-party teams and Xbox Game Studios management and central functions.
Insider Gaming has since identified additional affected studios through employee posts and its own reporting. The outlet says workers at The Coalition, World’s Edge and Treyarch were among those impacted, expanding the known reach of the layoffs beyond the teams Microsoft explicitly named. Reports from employees have also surfaced across other parts of Microsoft’s gaming organization as staff publicly disclosed that their positions had been eliminated.
Halo Studios is one of the most heavily affected groups in the restructuring. Microsoft has confirmed that only a smaller team will remain there to support the existing Halo community and games already on the market, while Activision takes responsibility for developing the next Halo title through a separate purpose-built team. The change is part of the broader Xbox restructuring that eliminated 268 roles and reorganized several major studios.
The Coalition has also been affected, according to employee posts highlighted following Microsoft’s announcement. Narrative director Juan Vaca said publicly that he had been laid off, confirming at least one reduction at the Gears of War developer. The timing comes shortly after The Coalition completed major development milestones on Gears of War: E-Day, although Microsoft has not disclosed how many positions were removed from the studio or which disciplines were most affected.
World’s Edge, the Xbox organization responsible for overseeing the Age of Empires franchise, is another team named in reporting around the cuts. Microsoft simultaneously announced that World’s Edge will now fall under Activision as part of the studio reorganization. The company has framed that wider reshuffle as an effort to reduce the number of separate business units and place closely connected teams under broader publishing organizations.
The reductions also extend into Activision’s Call of Duty development network. Insider Gaming and CharlieIntel have both pointed to employee posts indicating that Treyarch staff were affected, while reports have also referenced layoffs at Raven Software. Microsoft has not provided individual headcounts for either Call of Duty studio, so the scale of the cuts within those teams remains unclear.
Those details add context to Microsoft’s relatively broad official announcement. Xbox said the 268 eliminated positions span Halo Studios, other first-party developers and the Xbox Game Studios management and central functions layer, but stopped short of naming every team. The additional studio-level information therefore comes primarily from employees who have announced their departures and reporting that has connected those posts to the wider restructuring.
The September layoffs form another stage of a larger workforce reduction plan that began earlier in Microsoft’s fiscal year. Reports had already indicated that hundreds of additional Xbox jobs and multiple studio consolidations were being prepared before Microsoft confirmed the 268-role reduction. The company says actions completed since July, including several studio divestitures, now represent roughly three-quarters of its previously announced restructuring.
Microsoft is also making substantial organizational changes alongside the layoffs. Activision is taking responsibility for Halo, Rare and World’s Edge, Obsidian is moving under Bethesda, and Playground Games and Turn 10 are being combined into a single organization focused on Forza and Fable. Those moves mean the current cuts are occurring alongside a broader reshaping of how Xbox’s development and publishing groups are structured.
For now, Microsoft has not released a definitive list of every affected studio or the number of jobs lost at each one. The confirmed total remains 268 roles across Xbox, while employee disclosures and secondary reporting indicate the impact stretches across Halo Studios, The Coalition, World’s Edge, Treyarch and additional teams. More studio-level details may emerge as affected developers continue to identify themselves publicly.
