Xbox announced this morning that it was laying off an additional 268 people as part of its ongoing “reset” to its teams and numbers. These new cuts were mostly made to Halo Studios and various management layers within Xbox Game Studios. The company also announced that it’s consolidating several studios and IP, including bringing Halo under Activision’s purview.
It also gave updates on the studios it announced it was cutting earlier this year. Compulsion and Double Fine have already spun off, and Undead Labs has completed its transition to independence, with State of Decay 3 still in development. However, things do not look so rosy for Ninja Theory and Arkane.
The “Continuing Our Reset” memo from Matt Booty says, “Unfortunately, two separate agreements for Ninja Theory fell through. We will now begin consultation with employees on a proposed closure while continuing to explore other paths forward.”
This leaves several questions as to what’s going to happen with Ninja Theory. Presumably the “two separate agreements” explored came about after the studio was named as one of those likely to close. But the question remains: What exactly is going to happen to Ninja Theory? “Consultation with employees” and “other paths forward” both bookend the two important words there: “Proposed closure.”
And if Ninja Theory does indeed close, does this mean that Senua — the game we now know was revealed as an ad hoc advertisement for the studio itself — will not move forward in production? Will Xbox hold onto the IP?
The question echoes as well for Arkane, which was already part of the consultation process. Booty noted, “Consultation with Arkane remains underway and is expected to continue through the end of the year.” The question of what will happen to Arkane’s IP is also up in the air, as it seems a management buyout is not a solution for that studio either — though given it’s based in France, the process could be different according to French laws.