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The latest stage of Xbox’s delicately named “reset” arrived last Tuesday—but its impact on World’s Edge Studio, the developer now behind the Age of Empires series, was only briefly mentioned in Xbox CCO Matt Booty’s announcement. On sites like resetera and LinkedIn, former employees of the RTS developer have shared that it was hit especially hard.
“What a morning,” said former World’s Edge creative director Adam Isgreen on resetera, posting under the verified account name Tempus Chaoti. “FYI World’s Edge was not spared completely—just under half the studio was let go—myself included. Been fun, y’all!” This is in addition to the studio now answering to Activision alongside Sea of Thieves developer Rare.
Andrew Martz, former senior software engineer at World’s Edge, posted on LinkedIn adding that “as part of that reorg, our next project was canceled and a large chunk of our studio was laid off. I was part of that layoff.”
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Isgreen also had more to say on LinkedIn, reflecting on his time working on the RTS series: “I didn’t think I’d be working on RTS games again years after their first ‘heyday,’ but am I ever proud of what our studio team and partners were able to do with the series and juice the genre’s return. I think the fans would agree (mostly!) that we delivered the goods for all of ’em.”
While layoffs are always devastating to the affected workers, this latest round of calls from Xbox is especially baffling, and Microsoft’s track record of destruction goes far beyond the games industry, it’s still alarming how little regard for this medium’s history has been shown in this “reset.” This situation with World’s Edge Studio echoes the company’s treatment of id Software and countless other teams earlier this year.
