Yesterday, Microsoft shocked the industry by announcing that more than 10.000 employees would be laid off due to an economic slowdown. “During the pandemic, there was rapid acceleration", Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said. “I think we’re going to go through a phase today where there is some amount of normalization in demand. We will have to do more with less — we will have to show our own productivity gains with our own technology.” Following this announcement, Bloomberg reported that, among others, Xbox studios The Coalition, Bethesda, and Halo developer 343 Industries would be hit. Recent rumors claim that the Halo studio has been hit hard, and on Twitter, former ex-Halo developers Tyler Owens and Patrick Wren (both currently working at Respawn), have criticized top leadership at Microsoft for the state of Halo Infinite. As some of you might recall, a lot has been said and written about the game’s development and missing features. “The layoffs at 343 shouldn’t have happened and Halo Infinite should be in a better state”, Patrick Wren tweeted. “The reason for both of those things is incompetent leadership up top during Halo Infinite development causing massive stress on those working hard to make Halo the best it can be.” The former Halo Infinite Multiplayer designer added, “The people I worked every day with were passionate about Halo and wanted to make something great for the fans. They helped push for a better Halo and got laid off for it. Devs still there are working hard on that dream. Look at Forge. Be kind to them during this awful time.” Wren later pointed out that the multiplayer leadership team was actually pretty great.
— Patrick Wren (@Witdarkstar) January 19, 2023 Meanwhile, Tyler Owens, who worked on Halo 5: Guardians, said that Microsoft has set up the Halo franchise for failure. “As a Halo fan, I’m really tired of Microsoft business practices & policies slowly killing the thing I love between the contracting policies they abuse for tax incentives & layoffs in the face of gigantic profits/executive bonuses… they set Halo up for failure”.
— Tyler Owens (@heytred) January 18, 2023 Truly sad to see so many employees losing their jobs. We can only hope for them to find a new position soon.
