Halo Made Its PS5 Debut, So Now It's Time for Xbox to Lay Off the Team That Made It

Feel bad for the devs that are being cut, especially after a game releases, but layoffs are becoming too much of a trend in the industry over the last few years.

I do feel bad for all the rank-and-file devs that are about to get laid off, but at the same time, all reports point to Halo Studios being one of the most dysfunctional studios at Xbox. Leadership at that studio needs to go and a giant restructuring needs to take place.

I'm not nearly as down on Halo 4 as most people, but it doesn't really seem like they've ever made a game that lives up to the IP. Honestly, its one of the studios that, if they got completely shut down, I'd say, "Yeah, that makes sense."

They should have included the multiplayer as well. Hopefully we get halo 2 remake.

Maybe I would feel bad if it was another studio, maybe, but 343 being butchered just like they butchered Halo over the years is simply poetic justice and I can't stop laughing about it.

“it’s keeping some teams together while they finish off their projects, with the axe looming once said games are out of the door.”

Imagine being screwed if you don’t put out a game and being screwed if you do put out a game 😐😐😐

Dev teams need to form unions as soon as possible. It's come to a point where whole teams should strike six months before a game is finished and not come back to work until they're given some assurance that they will have a project to work on after they finish the current one.

It really sucks that this is basically to be expected anymore. I had a blast playing through this with a friend on Legendary, and I'll be revisiting for the skulls and remix shenanigans. Hopefully there will be staff left to work on 2, 3, and whatever else they're planning 😔

As much as I hate to say it, isn’t this the way most devs are operating these days? Ramp up staffing during development/ramp down after release? Sad but kind of the flow of things around the industry as a whole.

Do you guys remember job security?

Pepperidge Farm remembers!

Seasons change time passes by as the week's become the month's become the year's.

Feel bad for anyone in the past 20y who ever grew up & wanted to be a game dev. Sad times.

This is getting ridiculous, and I just can't see how it would be profitable long-term (except for board report shenanigans).

Yesterday I read quite a good article by an industry expert I tend to respect about the real cost of replacing a senior staff member at a software company (keep in mind we are often talking about producers and such with these MS layoffs).
Basically, it comes down to the cost of retraining and reintegrating a new member into company processes, when you choose to do so, costing in excess of 10.5x the person's monthly operating cost (that includes pay + benefits + licences + office supplies) before their productivity balances out with the released employee.

Does this mean people who were let go would basically do nothing for a year before the studio would have anything for them?

Morale must be at an all time low. Damned if you do well, damned if you don't

Don’t get yourself too excited Sammy. Sony are likely to announce some significant news relating to Bungie soon, Marathon is flatlining so they will likely be joining team green in the near future.

Why bother buying the first Halo, if Xbox might make other remasters / Halo games exclusive again with their flip flopping...
Or lay off the team / part of the team, so no more are made...
Xbox seem to be in a right mess right now.

Don't a lot of publishers downsize once a game is finished?

@Rich33 Because Halo Combat Evolved is a very good game.

I would implore anyone to play Breath of the Wild if they got a chance regardless of their ability to access the rest of the series. Same goes for...literally any game. PS5 owners should play inFAMOUS Second Son even though Sony seems entirely uninterested in porting/remastering 1, 2, and FoB.

Sure doesn't bode well for the next Halo... Already doesn't sound like anyone's impressed with Campaign Evolved's new content, which would presumably be a preview of the next game.

Now they have less people to make it any good...

All dead weight and/or directly responsible for the franchise’s slump, according to Reddit and PureXbox.

It’s insane to me how many gamers stooge for impotent management either knowingly or otherwise. All the venom is aimed at the little guys while leadership and corporations get off easy.

Ah, the true key to success: Dumping the teams that made your product.

Halo: Capitalism Evolved

@awp69 Well, firstly, just because that does seem to be the cadence of game development at a lot of developers, that doesn't mean it's a good practice or makes sense long-term.

In this case, Nick Treitman was at the studio for 6.5 years. So I wouldn't chalk this up to typical post launch layoffs.

@Old-Red A believe a lot of staff at Xbox were already unionized. At the very least, most of the recently gutted Bethesda were.

Apparently didn't help much... Maybe they got nice severance packages.

It's sad how billions dollar corpos like Sony, MS, Ubisoft, EA etc treated devs like a bubble gum :/

Don't need to worry any more about going digital
At this rate there won't be any games to buy on the next consoles 😡

Oops I forgot AI will take over there jobs now is guess this is what people want

Sounds like they should have removed troublesome leadership at the studio WAY before they started making Campaign Evolved. THAT has been the biggest problem; behind the scenes chaos has been widely reported, largely from leadership fumbling the basics. I've had a blast with it, but it's a patch or two away from greatness. Should never have happened; the blueprint for the game has been very well fleshed out, and this should have been a relatively straightforward project.

Well done guys... your fired!

I wouldn’t be in any hurry to push a game through development either if I knew that I was going to lose my job once it’s finished.

@CielloArc I feel exactly the same way about Bungie, can’t wait to see them go.

@ElPenitente You should see all of the 'you too can be a game Developer!' books from the early 2000s, page after page about how great the industry was. They printed stacks of them, there's something really morbid about looking through them today. At the same time it answers the question of why even enter in the industry in the first place. It really was sold to people as a dream job.