{"id":907986,"date":"2026-09-28T01:08:13","date_gmt":"2026-09-28T01:08:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/907986\/"},"modified":"2026-09-28T01:08:13","modified_gmt":"2026-09-28T01:08:13","slug":"microsofts-latest-xbox-layoffs-have-reportedly-gutted-the-age-of-empires-studio-cancelling-its-next-game","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/907986\/","title":{"rendered":"Microsoft’s latest Xbox layoffs have reportedly gutted the Age of Empires studio, cancelling its next game"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Screenshot
\n Credit:\u00a0World’s Edge<\/p>\n

Summary<\/p>\n

Ex-Age of Empires devs report the World’s Edge studio was cut roughly in half in layoffs.<\/p>\n

World’s Edge’s next Age of Empires project was reportedly cancelled amid the reorganisation.<\/p>\n

Microsoft says it completed over three-quarters of planned Xbox layoffs; more cuts to come.<\/p>\n

A few days ago, Microsoft announced a huge reshuffle of its studios, which included a lot of layoffs and resulted in Activision taking over the Halo franchise<\/a>. However, it seems the damage went further than what Microsoft announced. We’re seeing reports come in across the internet from former developers of Age of Empires, who claim that the studio was cut in half and a new game was cancelled.<\/p>\n

Age of Empires’ next project has been cancelled, claims ex-devs<\/p>\n

The layoffs hit the studio pretty hard<\/p>\n

\"Screenshot
\n Credit:\u00a0World’s Edge<\/p>\n

As spotted by PC Gamer<\/a>, developers from Age of Empires’ current studio, World’s Edge, have popped up on social media to report being laid off. One appeared on the ResetEra forums<\/a> claiming that “just under half the studio was let go,” and Adam Isgreen<\/a> took to LinkedIn to lament the end of a 16-year career, saying the team “had some great plans for what’s next.”<\/p>\n

Andrew Martz<\/a>, who worked as a Senior Software Engineer at World\u2019s Edge, shed a bit of light on what the layoffs meant for the Age of Empires series:<\/p>\n

“Well, after getting laid off from Xbox last May and performing a small miracle by finding a new role at Xbox’s World’s Edge studio in February of this year, I am once again on the job hunt.<\/p>\n

Today our studio was reorganized to be under the Activision umbrella. As part of that reorg, our next project was cancelled and a large chunk of our studio was laid off. I was part of that layoff.”<\/p>\n

It’s worth remembering Microsoft’s statement about the layoffs a few days ago, saying that it had only performed three-quarters of its planned Xbox layoffs, so unfortunately, this won’t be the last time we’ll hear of games never coming to light due to people being let go.<\/p>\n


\n \"The<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Related<\/p>\n

\t\t
\n\t\t\tXbox CEO Asha Sharma doesn’t deny The Elder Scrolls 6 as a console exclusive, which is a little worrying
\n\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n

Here’s hoping it’s a nothing burger.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Credit:\u00a0World’s Edge Summary Ex-Age of Empires devs report the World’s Edge studio was cut roughly in half in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":907987,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[64,63,105],"class_list":["post-907986","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/907986","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=907986"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/907986\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/907987"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=907986"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=907986"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=907986"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}