Simon The Cartographer ✈️ Halo Fest

The Game Business summary on Xbox Game Studios “It’s divested of Double Fine (Psychonauts) Compulsion (South of Midnight) and Undead Labs (South of Midnight), which have all been returned to independence. At one point, Undead Labs was being acquired by UK developer Splash Damage (Gears Tactics), which is funded by Emona Capital (Emona also funds UK publisher Secret Mode and Canadian developer Relic). But that deal didn’t complete.” “The fourth studio is Ninja Theory. It also had two buyers at one point, but both deals fell through. I know two investors that looked at Ninja Theory, and they both told me the cost of the team was high, which ultimately deterred them.” “UK law means that Ninja Theory isn’t being closed today. However, staff are being put on consultation, which gives Xbox around six weeks to secure a new home for the Cambridge-based team. I am told its next game, Senua, is “A significant step-up on Hellblade 2”, so fingers crossed it finds someone.” “The fifth studio Xbox is divesting from is Arkane Lyon. The consultation on that studio extends to the end of the year.” “Rare is behind Sea of Thieves. The pirate game has been a decent success, but it has been declining over the last few years. In 2025, Rare’s Everwild project was cancelled, which led to some redundancies. However, the studio was able to mitigate that by cutting back on outsourcing, and moving staff onto Sea of Thieves. As a result of its Activision move, there have been a few cuts to Rare’s central operations team. The studio is working on other projects.” “In 2002, Nintendo owned 49% of the studio and had the option to take the remaining 51%. It declined to do that, triggering a bidding war. By the end, two companies remained in for Rare. One of those companies was, of course, Xbox. The other? Activision.” “In terms of Obsidian, there is some unhappiness that it’s becoming part of Bethesda. Some of the team feel they’ve lost the autonomy and freedom that they were promised. But the games it released last year, although good quality, didn’t perform as hoped. And the chance to stay together and work on a major IP like Fallout might, in time, be viewed as a positive outcome.” “The biggest story is, of course, Activision taking over Halo. This is less about cutting costs and more about getting Halo moving again. Halo was once one of the world’s leading shooters. The 2007 release of Halo 3 was the biggest entertainment launch of all time back then. Today, it is a shadow of that.” via: The Game Bussiness thegamebusiness.com/p/is-xbo… youtube.com/watch?v=ZDkwFIMq…