Microsoft's Halo Studios has started laying off staff days after Halo: Campaign Evolved launched

Microsoft

Halo Studios has begun laying off employees following the release of Halo: Campaign Evolved, the first game in the franchise to launch on a PlayStation platform. Multiple staff members have confirmed their departures via LinkedIn, with reports suggesting the layoffs come on the back of underwhelming sales and a reportedly troubled development that also resulted in a planned Halo multiplayer spin-off being canceled.

The details:

Producer Nick Treitman confirmed he was caught in the latest round after over six years at the studio. "After 6.5 years working on Halo and dodging just as many rounds of layoffs, it has finally caught up to me," he wrote. During his time at Halo Studios, Treitman supported teams across art, networking, localization, and narrative, and served as product owner of Halo Infinite's social multiplayer pillar.
Scrum master Paul Morris, who was working at the studio on a contract basis, also confirmed his departure. "Today, I learned my time at Halo Studios will be coming to an end following the successful launch of our latest game, Halo: Campaign Evolved," he wrote. Software engineer Caleb Lawrence has also listed himself as available for work.
Halo: Campaign Evolved sold approximately 900,000 copies on Xbox Series and Windows, 425,000 on PlayStation 5, and 212,000 on Steam, for a combined total of around 1.5 million copies across platforms. The game was Halo's first release on Sony hardware.
Reports indicate the game's development was troubled throughout, consuming more resources than originally planned and leading to the cancellation of a separate Halo multiplayer project that had been in the works alongside it.