{"id":89941,"date":"2026-09-22T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-09-22T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/?p=89941"},"modified":"2026-09-22T11:36:40","modified_gmt":"2026-09-22T15:36:40","slug":"confirmed-microsoft-hands-halo-to-call-of-duty-developer-activision-as-part-of-seismic-xbox-studios-shakeup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/?p=89941","title":{"rendered":"CONFIRMED: Microsoft Hands Halo to Call of Duty Developer Activision as Part of Seismic Xbox Studios Shakeup"},"content":{"rendered":"<section data-transform=\"mobile-ad-break\">\n<p>Microsoft has today confirmed that the next mainline Halo game will be developed by Call of Duty maker Activision, with mass layoffs hitting Halo Studios amid a significant restructure of its Xbox studios setup.<\/p>\n<p>Xbox announced 268 layoffs today &#8220;across Halo Studios, other first-party studios, and the XGS management and central functions layer&#8221; as part of <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\">the ongoing cuts first announced in July<\/a>. The layoffs, the majority of which are at Halo Studios, come as part of new Xbox boss Asha Sharma\u2019s \u201creset\u201d of Microsoft&#8217;s gaming business that had already seen 1,600 staff lose their jobs in the summer. At the time, Microsoft said another 1,600 staff on top would also go this financial year.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The actions completed since July, inclusive of the studio divestitures, bring us roughly three-quarters of the way through previously announced restructuring,&#8221; Xbox Chief Content Officer Matt Booty said in a <a href=\"https:\/\/news.xbox.com\/en-us\/2026\/09\/22\/continuing-our-reset\/\">blog post<\/a>. &#8220;I am deeply grateful for what our colleagues have built, and I know how difficult today will be for those leaving and the teams around them.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>With Halo Studios gutted, Microsoft has handed Halo to Activision. Activision will develop &#8220;the next Halo title,&#8221; Booty said, &#8220;led by a new, purpose-built team that is separate from<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Microsoft has today confirmed that the next mainline Halo game will be developed by Call of Duty maker Activision, with mass layoffs hitting Halo Studios amid a significant restructure of its Xbox studios setup. Xbox announced 268 layoffs today &#8220;across Halo Studios, other first-party studios, and the XGS management and central functions layer&#8221; as part&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":35,"featured_media":89943,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-89941","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\/89941"}],"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\/35"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=89941"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89941\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":89944,"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89941\/revisions\/89944"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/89943"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=89941"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=89941"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=89941"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}