Members of the French video game union STJV (Syndicat des travailleureuses du jeu vidéo) at Arkane Lyon have accused Microsoft of sabotaging Marvel's Blade. In a statement published on November 4, the union claims a 19-month hiring freeze created the very delays and extra costs that Microsoft now cites as economic grounds for closing the studio. It also says work on Blade is going fine, with expected quality on par with Arkane's earlier games. Xbox hasn't responded publicly yet.

The union goes further, arguing that Arkane is profitable, "just not profitable enough for Microsoft." Apparently, the studio's cash always looks low because leftover money gets sent up to the group through cash pooling, and sales of its older games, which STJV puts in the tens of millions, don't show up in the company results. It adds that closing Arkane would probably cost more than finishing Blade. The union wants workers to have a say in picking a buyer, along with a fund that would protect anyone a new owner lays off within 24 months. If the studio does close, it is asking for a €200,000 redundancy payment and two years of Microsoft-funded redeployment support, among other demands.

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.

Electronic Arts recently announced that it is shuttering BioWare and cancelling its upcoming Mass Effect game and cutting 400 jobs in the process, after the gaming giant acquired the game studio in 2007. According to a former executive producer at BioWare, Mark Darrah, however, there may still be hope for fans of BioWare's myriad beloved franchises, including Mass Effect.

Mark Darrah on YouTubeRemember, BioWare, 100% owned by EA, so EA owns all the IPs. They own Dragon Age, they own Mass Effect, they own Jade Empire. So, that doesn't change the situation really at all... Now, there's nobody working on a game or games within the EA organization, and chances are there never will be, which might make them more likely to sell off those IPS, but it might also make them more likely to just try to forget that they ever existed and bury them in the vault.

A day after EA shut down BioWare, a trailer for the canceled next Mass Effect game has leaked online, and it seems the game was going to be called Mass Effect: Universe. Reddit user Random_Hyabusa_Ninja posted the roughly two-minute clip on r/masseffect on October 22, first in the replies of another post, and then as a standalone post. Bloomberg's Jason Schreier has since confirmed on Bluesky that it's a real trailer for the Mass Effect game BioWare was working on up until the closure. The clip is a cinematic rather than gameplay. It follows a new human protagonist, with no sign of Shepard, through a tense bar conversation with an Asari who appears to be Liara T'Soni, cuts to a few gunfights and a Krogan, and ends on the Mass Effect: Universe logo.

The leak also raises questions about how far along the game actually was. EA's internal memo described it as being in early development, and around 50 of the 400 jobs EA is cutting were tied to it. However, a Reddit user claiming to be an EA employee said the trailer had been ready for months and that the project was further along than people think. BioWare first teased the game back in 2020, so that claim doesn't seem far-fetched, but its source is questionable at best. There's no word from EA on the leak so far, though it's reasonable to expect takedown requests to follow.

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.

Staff at Ninja Theory, the Cambridge studio behind Hellblade, have started posting on LinkedIn that they have been laid off or that their jobs are at risk. The posts were first spotted by journalist Chris Kerr, and they come from a technical director, a gameplay programmer, sound designers, and technical artists, among others. Senua, the third Hellblade game, was revealed at the Xbox Games Showcase in June with a 2027 release window on PC, Xbox, and PlayStation 5. Xbox hasn't officially canceled it; however, gameplay programmer Katrin Mair wrote in her post that it was sad knowing "we won't get to finish what we were working on."

Ninja Theory was supposed to survive the 3,200-job Xbox "reset" announced in July. Xbox CEO Asha Sharma said at the time that the studio had entered terms to join new ownership, with funding to finish Senua. That plan fell apart in September, when Xbox chief content officer Matt Booty told staff that "two separate agreements for Ninja Theory fell through" and that a consultation on a proposed closure would begin. He did add that Xbox would keep looking at other options for the studio, though there has been no update on that since. Neither Xbox nor Ninja Theory has said how many people are affected, and the closure itself is still officially a proposal. Xbox has an all-hands town hall scheduled for October 6, so more details may follow.

Mere hours after it was leaked that Xbox would be continuing its recent slew of layoffs, Xbox Wire published an internal email, officially confirming those layoffs and providing a glimpse into the future of the Xbox game development landscape. As a result of the layoffs, which will see 268 employees out of work, there also will be changes to several studios at Xbox, including Activision, Bethesda, King, Playground, and Turn 10.

It seems as though all of the layoffs this time around came out of the Halo Studios team, and Microsoft has left Activision in charge of the next Halo game as a result. Xbox says that a small team at Halo Studios will remain in order to support Activision in the franchise's development. Meanwhile, Ninja Theory, which was previously in negotiations on deals to exit Xbox's ownership, will officially close down instead of being bought. The Hellblade/Senua franchise will seemingly be developed by another studio at Xbox, following the closure of Ninja Theory. Xbox claims that two separate buyout deals had fallen through. For the time being, it seems as though Blizzard has escaped its anticipated layoffs.

Build a Rocket Boy, the studio behind MindsEye, has seemingly started shutting down after a recent round of layoffs and a tumultuous year following the launch of the aforementioned third-person shooter. The layoffs and subsequent shutdown have been confirmed by Build a Rocket Boy employees in recent posts on LinkedIn. So far, a number of employees have posted about the layoffs within the span of a day: Liam Shannon, a level designer at BARB; Elizabet Tyaneva, a senior QA analyst; Michaela Emslie, release manager; and Cameron Deaves, a production QA analyst, and Sandy Greig, a lead QA analyst; among others.

An additional post from Dan Hawkins reportedly stated that he "will be seeing BARB through till the very end, helping wrap things up here in the HR department," seemingly confirming that the studio will be shutting down. Additionally, the IWGB Game Workers Union issued a statement to Rock Paper Shotgun, effectively confirming the layoffs and stating that the union remains "committed to getting justice for BARB management's treatment of workers and organising to root these practices out of the video games industry." It's currently unclear when the studio will officially close its doors or announce its closure, since an official statement has yet to be published.

One of the outcomes of the recent Xbox Reset that also resulted in 3,200 job cuts is that Xbox Game Studios cut ties with a handful of its recently acquired game studios. Compulsion Games, the studio behind We Happy Few and South of Midnight, is one of the game studios that became independent again after what has been revealed to be a management buyout.

Following the buyout, Compulsion Games CEO, Guillaume Provost, commented in an interview with GamesBeat that the studio is currently working through the legal work to get publishing rights back for all of its IPs. Provost confirmed that the studio is aiming to be self-sufficient by being selective with which projects the team will tackle.

Hyper Dash, the VR PvP boomer shooter that launched in 2021, is officially going offline on 1 November 2026. Triangle Factory, the studio behind the game, announced that it has made the decision to shut down the game and turn off the servers, stating that "Hyper Dash is no longer generating enough revenue to cover its ongoing server and maintenance costs."

The X post announcing the game's end of support also explains that Hyper Dash uses third-party software that makes it impossible to simply open-source the software or allow for community hosting. The final update, which shipped on July 27, officially makes the game completely playable without a server connection. At the time of writing, it seems as though offline play will be limited to single-player gameplay, since community-hosted servers are off the cards.

Amid mass layoffs at Xbox and studio closures elsewhere, more bad news emerges from the ailing gaming industry, as Midgar, the Nacon-owned studio behind Edge of Eternity, a turn-based JRPG adventure game, has officially announced that it would be shutting down. Earlier this year, Nacon also shut down Spiders, the studio behind GreedFall, for similar reasons. Similarly, Nacon also went on to publish a GreedFall DLC after the studio shut down.

The closure comes as a result of a court-ordered liquidation, which follows the studio's failure to find a buyer. The announcement comes by way of a LinkedIn post by the studio's co-founder and current Nacon CTO, Jérémy Zeler-Maury, who says that "we worked until the very end to find a solution that could preserve both the company and the team," but after exhausting other alternatives, this is the only way forward.

IO Interactive recently confirmed that the end of "a relationship with an external partner," now known to be Xbox Game Studios, meant that the studio would no longer have the funding it required to work on a game known as Project Fantasy with its current staff. On July 7, IO Interactive expanded on the round of layoffs it previously confirmed, announcing in a post on X that it would be closing its Istanbul studio and laying off an undisclosed number of staff. It stands to reason that the studio's Istanbul staff will all be affected by the layoffs, but it has not been confirmed whether layoffs will extend beyond that studio. The studio closure comes not two months after the launch of the highly successful 007 First Light, which managed to sell an astounding 1.5 million units in just 24 hours.

[Editor's note: TechPowerUp's in-depth Performance Review and Handheld Performance Review of 007 First Light are now live]

Additionally, IO Interactive confirmed in the post that its Project Fantasy is still in development and that it has "regained full ownership of the project," suggesting that it will have more creative freedom and financial responsibility for the game. The post reiterates that the company is dedicated to Project Fantasy, but there are questions about the future of the studio's other IPs, like Hitman and 007. Project Fantasy is being developed as an online fantasy RPG inspired by tabletop RPGs and built with multiplayer and co-op gameplay as a core component. The full statement by IO Interactive follows.

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.

Memories in Orbit (MIO) launched in January 2026 to a relatively positive critical reception, but it seems as though its commercial success has not met expectations. According to a recent report by French news outlet, Le Figaro, Douze Dixièmes will be closing down following a buyout deal by Douze Dixièmes co-founders that would allow them to regain control of the company from Focus Entertainment and close things out on their terms.

While Memories in Orbit received high praise at launch, at its height, it failed to even break 3,000 concurrent players on Steam, according to SteamDB. At the time of writing, the game has a 24-hour peak concurrent player count of 201 players, and ownership estimates put the $19.99 indie Metroidvania's sales at around 67,000-112,500 units, which was seemingly not even enough to sustain the small team of around 10 people at Douze Dixièmes and support the game's future development. Douze Dixièmes has not yet publicly acknowledged the closure.