Ubisoft has made an offer to buy Arkane Lyon, the French studio behind Dishonored, Deathloop and the upcoming Marvel's Blade, according to Bloomberg's Jason Schreier. At least two other gaming companies have put in offers of their own, though their names haven't come out yet. Apparently, Xbox is also weighing a sale to the studio's own management, much like how Double Fine and Compulsion Games went independent earlier this year. No deal has been agreed so far, and Xbox reportedly told Bloomberg that it is still exploring options ahead of a December deadline.

That deadline exists because of French labor law. Arkane Lyon's future was put under review in July as part of Xbox CEO Asha Sharma's "reset," and France's Florange Law required Microsoft to look for a buyer before it could close the studio. The consultation was first set to end on November 13, but Microsoft extended it by a month to December 13. Around 217 jobs are on the line. Insider Gaming, which says it confirmed the bid independently, adds that Ubisoft had been interested "for some time," even before Arkane's situation became public over the summer.

Xbox CEO Asha Sharma told staff at an internal town hall last week that the division needs new IP to survive, according to transcripts obtained by Windows Central from multiple sources. Sharma apparently said Xbox will keep betting on its biggest franchises, though she also wants the studios to keep making new games, and she framed that second part as a matter of survival. Sharma did tell The New York Times earlier this month that Xbox is not for sale, so it seems the plan is a smaller Xbox that still takes some creative risks. Here's what she reportedly said:

We're backing our strongest franchises. I want our great games to become great global billion-dollar franchises. I would also like to see us continue to create enduring new IP. We will not survive if we only revive on the past. We have to find new ways, and courage, to have invention on new IP, that reaches new sets of audiences.

Following the split from Xbox as a result of the gaming giant's year-long "reset," game studio Double Fine will be hosting the first Amnesia Fortnight event, a game jam event in which is pitches ideas and lets the community vote on which will eventually get made into a game.

This will be the studio's first Amnesia Fortnight since 2019, when the company was acquired by Microsoft. This time, the Amnesia Fortnight event will be accompanied by a Kickstarter campaign that Double Fine says will "help support our newly (re)gained independence," and backers will vote for four finalists to become a game prototype, one of which will "become a real (small) game."

Double Fine Productions was one of a handful of game studios that managed to regain their independence during the recent massive Xbox reset that saw a handful of studio closures, a massive number of layoffs, and additional collateral damage to studios not even under the Microsoft umbrella. The studio, which recently launched Kiln and previously developed the Psychonauts series, announced the layoffs in a post on Bluesky, noting that 23 staff members have been affected.

23 staff members represents roughly a quarter of Double Fine's staff, and the studio notes that the contraction is only necessary due to company financials. In a statement to Kotaku, Xbox said that "Double Fine fully returned to independent management earlier this week, with their IP, catalog, and runway for their next games. As they begin their next chapter as an independent studio, we look forward to seeing what they create next." It's currently unclear if Double Fine has any projects in the works, but it seems likely that there will be delays down the road if anything is in active development.

Following recent rumors of the same, Xbox CEO, Asha Sharma announced on July 6 that Microsoft's gaming division would be cutting its workforce by as much as 20% in the 2027 financial year as part of a year-long restructuring at Xbox. The layoffs started with 1,200 employees on the day of the announcement, and Sharma blames the layoffs on declining Xbox revenue, stating that "our business is not healthy," and that Xbox is "operating at margins that are 3-10× lower than comparable platform and publishing businesses." She goes on to acknowledge that Xbox sales for the Series X|S console generation has been low, and that Xbox used Game Pass, multi-platform launches, and an expanded content portfolio as an attempt to compensate for the low install-base and in order to grow the brand's presence.

As part of the plan to "reset" Xbox, Sharma confirmed that Compulsion Games and Double Fine Productions will become independent studios, while Ninja Theory and Undead Labs will be bought out and have started the acquisition process to be bought out by new ownership, where Senua and State of Decay 3 will continue development. Xbox is also looking to cut Arkane Lyon loose, although it doesn't seem as though a definitive plan has been put in place yet. Unspecified changes are also coming for Activision, Bethesda/ZeniMax, Blizzard, King, Mojang, and Xbox Game Studios, but Sharma has promised that these changes will not impact publicly announced first-party games. The restructuring will also result in a simplification of management at Xbox, with management layers reduced to a maximum of five and three where possible. Sharma claims that the "flatter organization" will help build success at Xbox, and she plans a "50% reduced vendor spend," across the company.

When it was reported that Xbox Game Studios was planning on restructuring in the face of plummeting revenue, which would predictably lead to mass layoffs and studio closures, it seemed as though a handful of studios were at risk of closure. Now, according to an insider source speaking to The Verge, that number has jumped to at least five game studios, including Arkane Studios, the game studio behind Dishonored and the upcoming Marvel's Blade. Allegedly, even before the rumored studio closures and layoffs, Xbox was unhappy with how slowly Blade was being developed and was weighing its options for the future of the game and its studio.

Microsoft is supposedly using up the time leading up to the planned layoff announcement to seek potential buyers for certain studios, including Arkane Studios, although sources say that Marvel's Blade, currently in development at Arkane, would be cancelled with the studio's closure. As many as 1,000 workers will potentially lose their jobs in the upcoming wave of layoffs at Microsoft's Xbox Gaming. Currently, it seems as though the layoffs will take place on July 6, but Microsoft has yet to confirm anything regarding the layoffs.

Molding a game into shape is a lot like bringing a piece of pottery to life from a chunk of clay. You must be nimble enough to maintain its shape all the way through to the firing process to keep your vision intact, which requires a tremendous amount of patience where a misstep can have it all fall apart—but with enough persistence, creativity, and elbow grease, beautiful art can come out of the fire. Now, Kiln has arrived to complement my metaphor with its unique blend of pottery creation and multiplayer party brawling, wrapped in Double Fine's singular magic. Revealed during the latest Developer_Direct, where we got to meet the team behind this upcoming game, you play as a little spirit tasked with creating and inhabiting pots of all sizes and shapes, before jumping into team-based multiplayer battle arenas against your fellow players' own clay creations.

Creating your own pot isn't just a pleasant side activity—you're quite literally handcrafting your pot from scratch, with your choices directly influencing how your character plays in the game. In talking with Project Lead Derek Brand, it's these custom pottery creations that help bring the unique elements of Kiln to life. The team worked incredibly hard to balance the feeling of doing it yourself with an accessibility that allows you to jump into the game feeling as though you've made the right pot for the right job."Making pots in real life is really difficult," explains Brand. "It takes a lot of practice, and you can get good at it over time, but it is not an easy thing to just jump into. We wanted to make the pot-making super easy and accessible—it's just a button and a control stick - and you can make any kind of shape you wanted. We wanted people to immediately feel like they're masters at this craft."