Microsoft has just announced massive job cuts and studio closures for the Bethesda portion of its gaming business. They impact the teams that made excellent games like Hi-Fi Rush.
IGN revealed these studios’ closures had happened and shared an internal email about them written by Matt Booty, the head of Xbox Game Studios. The four studios impacted are Redfall’s Arkane Austin, Mighty Doom’s Alpha Dog Studios, internal development studio Roundhouse Games, and Hi-Fi Rush’s Tango Gameworks.
With the closure of Arkane Austin, Booty says Bethesda will stop active development on future Redfall updates. It will keep its servers online for now, though, and Xbox “will provide make-good offers” to those who purchased Redfall’s hero DLC. On the mobile game front, Mighty Doom from Alpha Dog Studios will be sunset on August 7. Microsoft has turned off the ability to make in-game purchases.
Roundhouse Games will be merged into ZeniMax Online Studios to support their development work on games like The Elder Scrolls Online. All Booty had to say about the closure of Tango Gameworks was the following: “We are thankful for their contributions to Bethesda and players around the world. Hi-Fi Rush will continue to be available to players on the platforms it is today.” He also confirmed that “a small number of roles across select Bethesda publishing and corporate teams will also be eliminated”
Booty prefaced these announcements by saying that “these changes are grounded in prioritizing high-impact titles and further investing in Bethesda’s portfolio of blockbuster games and beloved worlds which you have nurtured over many decades.” He also referred to upcoming games and expansions like Starfield: Shattered Space and Indiana Jones and the Great Circle. This is the second massive wave of layoffs to hit an Xbox Studio this year, as nearly 2,000 developers were let go from Activision Blizzard in January.
