Microsoft fired nine thousand employees and canceled several games. Including restarting one of the best shooters in history - Perfect Dark

Among the reasons are the consequences of Covid, purchase Activision Blizzard and Boom AI

On July 2, 2025, Microsoft began mass reductions that affected the company's employees around the world. In total, more than nine thousand people lost their work. Significant losses suffered a game unit - the abbreviations affected many studios, and one of them, the American The Initiative, was closed. In addition, Microsoft canceled several projects, including the ambitious shooter of Perfect Dark and a multiplayer game from the creators of The Elder Scrolls Online. Medusa tells what other changes have occurred in Microsoft and why the corporation continues to dismiss employees.

The abbreviations affected more than a dozen studios. One of the fired worked in the company 35 years

Official representatives of the Xbox do not name the exact number of employees of the Microsoft gaming unit, who are reduced. Bloomberg journalist Jason Schreyer claims that the work has lost "hundreds" of people. The Wired publication with reference to the statements of Microsoft representatives clarifies that, although the game direction was injured, most of the abbreviations came to other units.

Nevertheless, the dismissal was affected by many Microsoft internal studios. For example, the whole team that was developing and supporting the Warcraft Rumble mobile game has fallen under the reduction. The Activision Blizzard employees, on anonymity, told Aftermath that about 100 people were dismissed. Also, the reductions were held at Zenimax Online Studios, which developed the multi -user role -playing game The Elder Scrolls Online, and at Undead Labs , which makes the State of Decay 3 action.

Insider Gaming editors report that the abbreviations were held at Sledgehammer Games and Raven Software. The Dexerto publication adds High Moon Studios to this list. All three studios helped in the development of various parts of Call of Duty. Moreover, right now, Raven Software, together with Treyarch, is creating a recently announced Call of Duty: Black Ops 7. Here are a few more famous studios where employees were fired:

• Turn 10 Studios - the creators of the Forza Motorsport racing series lost more than 70 employees. Schreyer sources report , this is about half of the American studio. At the same time, the British PlayGround Games, which is responsible for a separate series of Forza Horizon and the new Fable, has not yet been affected.
• The Initiative - the studio is closed. It was founded in 2018 to create large -budget AAAA -blockbusters. The Initiative was headed by Darrell Gallagher, the former head of Crystal Dynamics . In addition, Microsoft actively hired famous developers from other companies in the studio. For example, it was a leading screenwriter and designer Western Red Dead RedMption, Christian Kantamamsa. For seven years, the studio did not have time to release a single game. In total, about 50 people worked in it.
• King - a Swedish studio that develops mobile games, lost about 10% of employees. According to the sources of Jason Schreyer, this is about 200 people. King is known primarily thanks to the popular Puzzle Candy Crush Saga, which in ten years has reached a mark of three billion installations.
• Rare - according to the sources of the VGC publication, dismissal touched the British studio, in the past known thanks to the game series Battletoads and Donkey Kong. The exact number of abbreviated employees is not called, but it is known that Gregg Miles, who worked for 35 years, left the company's game designer. Recently, Rare has been actively supporting a multi -user adventure game about Sea of ​​Thieves pirates.

After the news of the reductions, the insider TheGhostofhope said that the head of Microsoft Gaming Phil Spencer in the near future could also leave the company. According to him, Spencer's resignation will occur after Microsoft releases the next generation Xbox console. Sarah Bond will replace him, who is now holding the position of president of the Xbox.

Xbox official representatives have already refuted this information. “Phil is not going to resign in the near future,” said Kary Peres, vice president of game communications. However, in general, her comment does not contradict the statements of the insider, given that the launch of the next Xbox will take place no earlier than 2027.

Jason Schreyer notes that Microsoft not only conducted abbreviations, but also canceled several projects that were in development. Their exact number is unknown, but among them there was definitely a non -anced multiplayer role -playing game from the creators of The Elder Scrolls Online.

Variety journalists managed to get the internal letter of the Xbox Game Studios head Matt Boti for employees, which said the cancellation of the School of Perfect Dark and the adventure action of Everwild. The creation of the latter for ten years has been engaged in the RARE studio. However, the team constantly had difficulties with the development, and the project changed the concept several times. At the same time, not so long ago, in October last year, Phil Spencer wrote on social networks that he managed to play the current version of Everwild.

The development of Perfect Dark was already engaged in the already closed studio The Initiative. It was supposed to be a restart of the series , the first part of which is still included in the ten best games in history. The new shooter was announced in 2020, but it soon became clear that The Initiative needed third-party help. The head of the studio Darrell Gallagher attracted several partners, including Crystal Dynamics, which he once headed. The first Gameplay of Perfect Dark was shown just a year ago, but the date of the possible release was not mentioned in the trailer.

Matt Boti in his letter mentioned that the abolition of a number of games would not affect the general publishing strategy of Microsoft. According to the head of the Xbox Game Studios, now more than 40 projects are in active development. Judging by the number, this number also includes games that are created by third -party companies that do not belong to Microsoft.

Large-scale contractions in the game industry and the entire IT industry have been continuing for several years. These are the consequences of Covid and (possibly) development of AI

The head of Microsoft Gaming, Phil Spencer, in a letter to employees, explained that the reductions in the game unit are associated with the need to focus on the most promising areas of business. He also noted that the example of the entire Microsoft Corporation, which wants to simplify the management structure and make the company more flexible.

The abbreviations are held against the backdrop of a rather successful financial year Microsoft, which ended on June 30. The company has not yet published a report on its results, but in each of the first three quarters it reported on the growth of all key financial indicators compared to similar periods of the last financial year. The revenue of the Xbox unit also grew.

Moreover, the past year has become successful from the point of view of the games themselves - this is noted by Phil Spencer himself. Over the past nine months, Microsoft has released Call of Duty: Black Ops 6, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, Avowed and Doom: The Dark Ages, each of which received high press marks. In addition, the Game Pass catalog was replenished at once by several high -quality games that were supposed to attract the attention of the audience to the service. Among them are Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is one of the best games of the year that fell into a subscription on the day of the release.

Through the scale of the entire Microsoft Corporation, I have not lost many employees - about four percent. In June 2024, 228 thousand people worked in the company, the Associated Press said . However, in a year this is the fourth wave of abbreviations. Moreover, the previous one was recently-in May 2025. Then about 6,000 people lost their work, that is, about three percent of employees.

Mass abbreviations in the IT industry have lasted the past few years. Some Western publications even have lists of the companies that they affected. Many associate dismissals with the consequences of the pandemic, when the demand for digital services has grown sharply and the IT sector began to actively hire new employees. Now companies are forced to optimize expenses and reduce.

In the case of Microsoft’s game division, there is another reason for constant restructuring. Buying Zenimax Media (Bethesda maternal company) and Activision Blizzard cost the companies more than $ 76 billion. Such high expenses led to increased control by the leadership of the corporation, Jason Schreyer said in May 2024. Now Microsoft Gaming is highly pressure, as they expect serious financial successes from the game unit.

In addition, it is not clear how Game Pass justifies itself. The current Xbox business model implies that all Microsoft games fall into the subscription catalog from the moment of release. Thus, many gamers prefer to spend $ 20 a month and have access to hundreds of games, and not buy every $ 70. And although Microsoft regularly reports on the successes of Game Pass, there is doubt that this service is really so profitable, including for partner developers.

The development of neural networks can also push Microsoft to reduce employees. The company actively introduces artificial intelligence into its work processes. And some departments are already trying to completely rebuild in order to match the trends.

The day before the dismissal was announced, the vice president and commercial director of Microsoft Jadson Althof sent a letter in which he announced the need for more active use of AI, reports Business Insider. Later it turned out that it was his department that suffered greatly from the abbreviations. Journalists suggest that restructuring can be associated with the new strategy of the company focused on neural networks.

AI hobby causes discontent in the game unit. “They are struggling to replace as many workplaces of the AI-agents as possible,” Halo Studios , one of the Microsoft leadership, told Engadget. However, the studio itself, which is responsible for the development of a popular shooter, almost did not affect.

Mikhail Gerasimov