It looks like July 6, when Microsoft expects to announce layoffs, will be a bloodbath.
Bethesda (Fallout), ID (Quake), Arkane (Dishonored), Machine Games (Wolfenstein), Zenimax Online (Elder Scrolls Online), Ninja Theory (Hellblade), Compulsion Games (South of Midnite), Undead Labs (State of Decay), and Double Fine (Pyschonauts) would all lose staff or, in some cases, close or be sold.
It had been reported that Obsidian was for sale, but those claims have now been retracted.
You can now add Rare (Sea of Thieves) to this list as Edge’s Patrick Garratt posted on Blue sky “I was told last night that Rare was in the neighborhood.” The same information was also reported in the Edge newsletter
3D Realms co-founder George Broussard spoke to X to report on what he heard. “Almost everything outside of Bethesda lost money or barely broke even/made a little for a while. The new management of MS will not care about potential, quality, legacy or anything other than profit at the moment,” he posted.
Just recently, hundreds of employees at Destiny creator Bungie were laid off after the announcement that support for Destiny 2 was ending.
IO Interactive and Microsoft have already confirmed that Microsoft has pulled out of a partnership for Project Fantasy, which appeared to be an Xbox-exclusive fantasy RPG project.
Source: Blue sky
