Xbox's Playground Games Grew Substantially In 2024 To Prepare For Fable & Forza Horizon 6

Xbox developer Playground Games has a big year on its hands in 2026 — with both Fable and Forza Horizon 6 due to release — and it seems the British studio has been growing substantially to prepare for these two huge releases.

The team's financial statements for 2024 have just been released publicly, and they confirm that the studio had grown from 381 devs in 2023 to 455 by the end of 2024. Last year, the team will have been working hard on those two upcoming titles - whilst also developing the PS5 version of Forza Horizon 5.

Although FH6 has only just been revealed, the upcoming racer will have been in development for a good few years now - and as for Fable, that one was actually due out this year at one point, so it makes sense the studio was staffing up heavily in 2024 to prepare for its big new Xbox RPG.

When it comes to more solid release dates for these two titles, we don't know anything right now beyond some broad 2026 launch windows. We have heard rumours that Horizon 6 may drop early next year though - and we'd take a guess that Fable will be arriving later in the year either way. Wherever these titles land in the 2026 gaming calendar, Playground seems to be scaling up appropriately.

We'll chuck a tweet to these financial statements down below, if you'd like to have a look for yourself:

Thoughts on this? Talk to us about Playground Games' big year next year down in the comments!