Halo Studios Suffers Job Losses Shortly After Campaign Evolved Launch

As I mentioned elsewhere, this is sadly just the way gaming development works these days. Ramp up staffing during development/ramp down after release. This unfortunately isn’t just a Microsoft problem. It’s an industry problem.

@somnambulance The entire gaming industry in the West is like this. Developer salaries—the most expensive part of making a game—are very high. Consequently, companies are downsizing their teams and opting to use outsourced studios to assist their staff.

Tis the way things are these days🤼‍♀️

End of the day it's bad sales numbers for a Halo title so it makes sense. Idk who wanted or asked for another remake but clear where their resources should be spent now: world class multiplayer and a strong story for an 10-16 hour campaign with online coop and single player. I'm all for more brutal combat, hope they give it to id so Chief can rip and tear. Hope they move away from Brutes as the baddies and give us better aliens than bullet sponges and corny grunts, been there done that for 25 years. I always have a special high hope in my heart for another excellent Halo experience. They can't buy their way into a good Halo game & need excellent devs, writers and musicians so their recent layoffs may very well make the next game a flop 😭

So much for the "See you in the sequel" bit.

I'm throughly bummed. Really enjoyed Campaign Evolved.

As I put on Push Square.
I think a lot of these studios have bloated overtime from the good old days and unfortunately for some the hour has come.

I think they all need to take a more tight employment approach, maybe the Nintendo model going forward, so these sad occurrences don’t happen again.

As for the Halo remake.
It was basically a simple remake for me and didn’t add much.
Being overwhelmed by the original on the original Xbox and showing off to my mates back in the day. Made it a game of its time and outstanding back then.
Playing the remake on GPU Series x felt tiresome and repetitive and just a bit more flash graphics wise and showed it’s aged overall.
I stopped after a mission or two got bored.

To be honest Halo Studios/343i is just incredibly incompetent, I already finished Campaign Evolved twice and I liked it because it’s Halo CE, but it again highlights how terrible the studio is managed with the game still unfinished having noticeable frame drops and visual artifacts in both Series X and PS5 Pro, like it’s remarkable they couldn’t even properly optimize a REMAKE, on that note it being a remake is the best thing about this release because the prequel extra missions are AWFUL, literally worse level design than missions that were designed 25 years ago, it again highlights how unready this team is to deliver a new game.

On the other hand I can only imagine how demoralizing is for the studios at Xbox to see that every time a game is released it’s immediately followed by layoffs, like what incentive remains for them to actually deliver on something great? You’re damned if you don’t and also if you do, I think we can already expect huge layoffs at The Coalition once E-Day releases.

@InterceptorAlpha The layoffs are not related to the game's success. Ashar is cutting 3,200 employees by next year; all studios will lose staff, regardless of whether the game performs well or not.

@IllusiveMan So, for you, 90% of the big-budget gaming industry is incompetent? Because the performance issues you pointed out in Halo are common in most releases. I could list several games where the media turned a blind eye to technical flaws and gave very high scores—titles like Elden Ring, Hogwarts Legacy, Baldur’s Gate 3, Black Myth: Wukong, and many others. I mention these because they were highly hyped; they were all patched over time, though some still have issues to this day. This is an area where I think AI could help in the future—by running various performance tests on games and flagging issues for developers.

@Fiendish-Beaver that’s prophetic and sounds about right

@Shinato2024 agreed especially on the hype and those companies getting a pass on patching over time

@Shinato2024 but you ruined it with the AI can help part bud

Whoever is saying AI can help; I think AI could help maybe doctors find cures for stuff but why the Heck would you want some computer telling you what colors would look nice in your art? No thanks

Terrible state of affairs for anyone working within XGS. The next team where Asha swings the axe will be The Coalition, because there's no way the studio won't loose a significant number of people once the game gets released and falls short of financial expectations.

This is Microsoft's MO regarding Xbox.

but honestly the global economy is so messed up you can’t even work for a huge corporation make an awesome product that sells thousands if not millions of copies and still keep your job? Unless you somehow are in a way related to India and you knew Satya Nadella from dinner and got a call while doing Pilates and letting out a smalllllll fart that you are now the CEO of a gaming company.

@Kloppo the new CEO is not Phil Spencer I don’t see any fat to trim on her body

@AI-Generation This. So, SO many studios now have what feel like endless bloat jobs & positions that balloon the time and cost of everything they do, and add virtually nothing to the company.

Would have sold more with multiplayer and if the new missions had classic ethos, no undertone that they went with. Drop the narrative. Also with multiplayer price should be the same.

Super interesting way to motivate people to build great "content" and "experiences" for us to enjoy.

> Hey, make sure you do a fantastic job with that, we're going to fire you as a reward! Look at all the other people around you, getting "rewarded".

It's like those horrible videos of cows in the slaughter house, watching how the other cows are getting killed further down the line.

I think next will be EA for some job losses.

I’ve never known an industry overall have so many job cuts.

It tells me one thing and that is the industry overall bloated itself with employees because it is happening to most studios across the industry.

They all got carried away when making really good money and also went berserk during Covid with employment and bloated the hell out of their staff numbers.

It’s is unfortunately the most inevitable loss of employees due to past mass recruitment and was bound to happen at some point.

@Shinato2024 When it’s the third time in a row for the studio to have technical issues at launch then yes, it absolutely is incompetence, and again highlighted by poor level design of the new missions.

This is a remake of a 25 year old game with fairly simple mechanics for today’s standards, it’s not a game pushing any boundaries that might justify some small frame drops, I’ve criticized those games’ performance (specially BG3) and called out many outlets for its double standards, why should Halo get a pass?
I’m not talking about a rare 5 FPS drop, but rather sinking consistently below 30 FPS on performance mode in both consoles during some heavy gameplay specially in the later half of the game, during the Halo mission it turned into a slideshow on my Series X for a few seconds and I’m not even talking about the balancing issues they already acknowledge, I don’t about you but I expected better from the ‘definitive version’ of Halo CE as this was supposed to be and still see many of the same issues that have always plagued the studio, it still is the 343i mess we know of but with a new name.
It clearly wasn’t ready for launch but I guess they couldn’t wait any further to do layoffs at the studio.

Did any of the original reporters clarify whether these supposed layoffs were for TEMP jobs and subcontractor teams? People who weren't expected to stay on and whose positions have ballooned the Halo development teams at least one other time in the past?

@kmtrain83 Oh I'm not saying for this situation specifically, just as an overall factor when it comes to layoffs in gaming. Don't know the details like you said, but I would very much believe 343/Halo Studios has a lot of meaningless positions.

@Jark Yeah, that's another factor that makes having sympathy difficult because of the bad actors. There's so many reports of 'layoffs' that were just temp employees upset they didn't get signed on again right away.

@shoeses one of them was the producer. You tend to find folks in that role are not temps.

Hate to think about people out of work, but this developer was handed the biggest franchise in gaming and turned it into what it is now.

The only people I genuinely hope are fired are the creatives there. On that front the games have progressively gotten worse and now the remake has a ton of modern audience energy. The next mainline Halo game will be another disaster without huge change.

@Fiendish-Beaver
Think you're right regarding Inxile.
Graphically looks great, wasn't excited by the latest trailer. Same old sweary, shooty gameplay with time travel elements.
Xbox needs an exclusive the appeals to much wider audience.
I don't think this game will produce the sales figures required and therefore unfortunately more job losses as you predicted.
On the other hand I'm hopeful that Minecraft Dungeons 2 will do well enough to create jobs.

Maybe hire people who actually like the franchise and don't have an agenda to push other than master chief being a badass

Same question for bioware. How are they not closed yet?

I'm so sick of hearing about Microsoft layoffs. Literally watching some of my favorite games and studios die in real time.

They fired the people who were behind doing things like
Putting a constant mission objective on the screen while you play the game that never goes away
Adding a zoom in feature to every weapon
Adding banter between MC and Johnson as they open panels such dialogue as Johnson telling MC one day they need to add an AI to him aka Cortona spoiler alert
Putting cutscenes in a linear horror scifi FPS shooter
Putting an ammo count on the needler
Making cortona and future AI models in game make quirky and cute looks

Oh…

@Fiendish-Beaver I agree, there will likely be more layoffs once first party games are released and I don't see these jobs coming back. Whatever narrative the industry wants to spin, AI is going to be a huge part of game development going forward too. That might mean more frequent releases of ambitious AAA titles but at what artistic cost? I think we're approaching the biggest changes the industry has ever seen, what with component costs and an all digital/potentially streaming future. We've never had more choice but I can't help feeling uneasy about our collective hobby.

@badboidre so all the good stuff?

@Dalamar for accessibility gamers sure good for Halo idk…not a fan of games that have the objective on the screen all the time or make the models raise their upper lips in close ups…looks like Sharma isn’t either

@Tasuki honestly, if I worked for a MS studio at this point, I would just do my job as slowly as I can so I can keep my job for another couple of months lol anyone not doing that and hoping they don't get axed are either very naive, or very dumb

How about shutting down Halo Studios/343i completely, and hand over the franchise, to another studio, not connected in ANY way to 343i.
I still dream about a Halo reboot, made by ID Soft instead.

@IllusiveMan from my playthrough on Series X it has almost all the features of Unreal 5. No other game has this..anywhere... No other game on any platform.

There are questions on project timelines at Halo Studios but they nailed the performance and features in CE. The Series S runs at 1440p upscaled 60fps. You just aren't getting that ANYWHERE else with Unreal Engine 5.

Pretty weird comment, the only major issues I've heard/seen is base PS5 drops in fps at a distance with enemies....that it.

I complain a lot about performance/visuals often but this is just....not really correct. Was this needed for CE and did it make it better? No not really but it's cool this exists.

How many of the 3200 does this account for?

@IllusiveMan yep the remake is a mess when it gets into demanding sections. Keyes, especially going for the catch skull, was a pain to try and get through due to stutters and low frame rate.

@kuu_nousee Are you actually playing it from start to finish or only glanced it to see how it looks? I can only speak of my own experience and some sections on the later half of the game are borderline unplayable, had the same experience as pointed out by @oopsiezz, it can basically can turn into a slideshow for a few seconds.

I’m often not bothered by small drops as with VRR those are barely noticeable but it literally stops the game entirely and it happened to me on both consoles, had to pause my Remix run because I’m not willing to play through the last act of the game at 10 FPS for the third time.

@IllusiveMan I've played the full game solo legendary to completion during pre-release weekend on Series X. I saw very few frame drops on the performance mode, one of the better Unreal games with many things going on screen.

Though with that said I haven't touched the game much since the official release day but only because I wanted to try the 3 new maps, all ran generally fine but did see a bit more fps drops vs the full campaign levels. Maybe potentially a patch came out and made the performance worse overall I'm not aware of?

Got to axe the people who actually make the Products we as Consumers want, we as consumers bought into the Microsoft Gaming ecosystem for etc whilst also paying Nadella nearly $100m last year, posting massive profits and getting Tax breaks but somehow can't afford to keep these staff who barely get paid enough to put food on the table, can't afford to keep the studios that actually make products to sell to consumers....

How much does nadella make

Hopefully Halo studios can rebound. I read an article about halo campaign evolved's troubled development with outsourcing to external studios. You'd think they would have figured out a development workflow by now. I really enjoyed combat evolved and would love to see remakes of 2 and 3. I just hope they also prioritize a multiplayer release because halo isn't halo without multiplayer.

@TheSimulator His base salary is 2.5 million but makes WAY more than that due to cash incentive and stock awards. I believe it's close to 100 million for 2025. He's the real boss. He instructs Asha what to do, so don't blame her for any stupid decisions. She's simply the face of Xbox (and what a face it is, which was intentional).

How does one prepare/build a future with job instability like this? I have left jobs, worked multiples, been furloughed and have student loans but I feel like I I was in this industry I would be in a cardboard box by now.

External contractor shift....Hmmmm I'll do you one better... lets see: creatively necessary restructure of work arrangements.

In other opinions of mine that you probably dont care about, campaign evolved is alot of fun. I hope they do 2 and 3 aswell.

Not actually layoffs as previously reported? Aw, that’ll disappoint the push square regulars.

But Layoffs is such a good buzz word for clicks.

@Weebleman the producer roll ends when the production ends. As the Halo leadership has been in trouble for some time — since before Infinite launched — they were probably lined up for the axe would swing for when the CEmake launched. Wouldn't make sense to kick them out mid-development.

@FraserG you pretty much have to update the story or follow-up all the time now, due to the "must print now" nature of online journalism. Twenty years ago, you'd have to wait until the story was straight before putting it into the press.

@Romans12 much more

And yet again the media is to hasty to be the first to report and spreads misinformation. In the end wasn't layoffs but the damage is done. Journalism is in need of a complete overhaul!