Obsidian Entertainment, for instance. The Californian studio has been one of the most productive since it joined Xbox in 2018, releasing The Outer Worlds 1 & 2, Grounded 1 & 2, Pentiment, and Avowed. Granted, none have been runaway successes (except for the first Grounded, to a degree), but the games were still well received.
And yet, according to Kotaku, the team is losing 25% of its staff, with cuts affecting all departments, including quality assurance, artists, writers, programmers, and producers. The report adds that work on Grounded 2, which is still in early access, and the promised The Outer Worlds 2 DLCs will continue. Still, an insider at Obsidian questioned how the studio will be able to pursue its ambitious list of projects with a quarter of its staff gone.
Another historic studio's future is in question. id Software (DOOM, Quake) is not closing down, but Jason Schreier said they were forced to cut a significant number of its staff. Scott Miller, one of the founders of Apogee/3D Realms, added that most, if not all, of the studio's coders are reportedly gone.
The fear in this case is that id Software may become a support studio for MachineGames, helping them create new DOOM, Quake, and Wolfenstein games, which are apparently still part of Sharma's new Xbox plan. Even so, that's a massive blow to a legendary team that also released successful games with the last three DOOM games. By the way, Revelations, the DLC to DOOM: The Dark Ages, is out today and could be their farewell as a lead developer.
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