{"id":85396,"date":"2026-07-06T11:07:17","date_gmt":"2026-07-06T15:07:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/?p=85396"},"modified":"2026-07-06T12:37:59","modified_gmt":"2026-07-06T16:37:59","slug":"double-fine-and-compulsion-confirm-status-following-xbox-cuts-get-to-keep-franchises-such-as-psychonauts-and-south-of-midnight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/?p=85396","title":{"rendered":"Double Fine and Compulsion Confirm Status Following Xbox Cuts, Get to Keep Franchises Such as Psychonauts and South of Midnight"},"content":{"rendered":"<section data-transform=\"mobile-ad-break\">\n<p>Double Fine and Compulsion Games have issued public statements to confirm their status following word of today&#8217;s enormous cuts by Xbox, discussing their respective futures as independent studios.<\/p>\n<p>While neither company will be shut down, neither will be part of Xbox Game Studios going forward either \u2014 and in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ign.com\/articles\/xbox-boss-asha-sharma-announces-3200-layoffs-including-1600-today-with-4-studios-leaving-for-new-management-read-the-email-to-staff-in-full\">an address to Xbox staff that confirmed job cuts of 3,200 employees this year<\/a>, Xbox CEO Asha Sharma made no mention of how either company&#8217;s workforce would also be impacted by their move to independence.<\/p>\n<p>Both Double Fine and Compulsion have been independent studios before, prior to their purchase by Microsoft during its company-buying spree \u2014 a bid to find firms who would help fill the Xbox Game Pass catalogue. Each developer will now return to independent status, with no word on what either studio will now work on. Both companies will be able to keep access to their existing franchises, however, and Sharma said they both have &#8220;runway for their next games.&#8221;<\/p>\n<section data-transform=\"slideshow\" data-slug=\"every-video-game-franchise-xbox-owns-after-acquiring-activision-blizzard\" data-value=\"every-video-game-franchise-xbox-owns-after-acquiring-activision-blizzard\" data-type=\"slug\" data-caption=\"\">\n<p>Founded in 2000 by legendary LucasArts developer Tim Schafer, Double Fine is known for a string of indie hits such as Psychonauts, Br\u00fctal Legend, Costume Quest, and the hugely-successful Kickstarter project Broken Age. Over the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Double Fine and Compulsion Games have issued public statements to confirm their status following word of today&#8217;s enormous cuts by Xbox, discussing their respective futures as independent studios. While neither company will be shut down, neither will be part of Xbox Game Studios going forward either \u2014 and in an address to Xbox staff that&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":140,"featured_media":85398,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-85396","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-external"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85396"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/140"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=85396"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85396\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":85400,"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85396\/revisions\/85400"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/85398"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=85396"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=85396"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=85396"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}