Xbox Live architect Eric Neustadter has left Microsoft

We’re just a few days from the launch of Halo 5: Guardians, but one of the people responsible for ensuring that blockbuster will have a robust network for online multiplayer has left Microsoft.

Eric Neustadter, also known as “e” on Xbox Live and the director of that network’s architecture, revealed on Twitter that today was his last day with the company. While with Microsoft, Neustadter helped guide the creation and development of Xbox Live as a premiere online gaming service, and he helped grow it to more than 39 million monthly active gamers. Under his leadership, he helped make the first true successful subscription-based online system for a video game console. And now, Xbox Live is widely considered the industry standard for multiplayer and social services in the game space, and Sony has since cloned many of its features for the modern incarnation of PlayStation Network.