The story director for Gears of War: E-Day has been laid off as part of yesterday’s Xbox cuts, barely two weeks before the game he’s worked on for more than four years is released.
Juan Vaca, who joined Gears of War: E-Day developer Coalition in 2022, announced he had been laid off from the company on LinkedIn last night. Vaca wrote: “I am part of this round of Microsoft layoffs and am open to new opportunities in games/film/tv. If your team needs a director/storyteller please reach out.”
Vaca’s prior post, made only five days ago, was a celebration of Gears of War: E-Day going gold (meaning the game is ready to be printed on discs). The game itself is set to be released on 6th October.
It is uncertain how many more developers at The Coalition, if any, have been impacted by this wave of Xbox cuts. According to Kotaku, which spoke to an anonymous source familiar with the situation, fewer than “a handful” of developers were laid off, and for reasons apparently unrelated to Xbox restructuring.
Yesterday was another day of upheaval for Xbox, with multiple studios consolidated or drastically altered as a result of ongoing restructuring work. 268 developers were laid off in total. Studios Rare and World’s Edge were moved under Activision’s control, Playground and Turn 10 will merge into one studio focused on Fable and Forza, and Obsidian – which is making a new Fallout game – now reports into Bethesda.
On top of that, Halo Studios has been drastically downsized as part of these layoffs, with Halo series development moving to Activision for future releases. Finally, Ninja Theory is heading towards closure, after potential new ownership deals fell through.
