"Remember you matter," says AoE veteran Earnest Yuen

Further details have emerged of the impact that Microsoft’s Xbox consolidation and job cuts programme is having on affected workers. World’s Edge, the studio that effectively manages strategy megaseries Age of Empires, has allegedly been hit hard, with an unnamed but verified creative director posting on industry forum ResetEra that "just under half" of all staff had been let go in the process of moving from Xbox’s direct control to Activision’s.

Over on LinkedIn, World’s Edge studio creative director Adam Isgreen – I haven’t confirmed if this is the owner of that ResetEra account – wrote that he, among “many” colleagues, were among the 268 staff in Xbox’s latest round of redundancies. "I am of course disappointed that this is the way the time with World's Edge and Age ends for myself and many of my talented teammates that were also impacted," Isgreen says. "We had some great plans for what's next - and I hope the team that remains can rise to the occasion down the line."

"What’s next" may refer to a new game project that was allegedly cancelled as part of Xbox’s livelihood-tinkering. Andrew Martz, a senior software engineer at World’s Edge, also shared on LinkedIn that he was among the layoffs, and that "our next project" had been shelved as a direct result of the Activision move.

World’s Edge, now-formerly part of Xbox Game Studios, have mainly performed more of a stewardship role for Age of Empires (and its spinoff Age of Mythology: Retold) than that of primary developers; Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition and Age of Empires IV were major collaborations with dev houses Forgotten Empires and Relic Entertainment respectively, with Forgotten Empires also co-developing Age of Mythology: Retold. World’s Edge have, however, remained in broad control of the RTS franchise. There’s currently no overt suggestion that this will end under Activision, though these layoffs and apparent game cancellation show the studio is still at the mercy of the ownership knife.

Earnest Yuen, a 30-year veteran AoE developer who retired from Microsoft in June this year, shared his condolences with the affected staff. "I keep thinking about the people behind the work: the artists, designers, engineers, producers, testers, and community folks who poured years of their lives into these games," Yuen writes. "Their ideas, their passion, their push to make the best experiences possible for players. Announcements can feel distant, but the impact is personal and immediate for the people living it.

"To everyone who’s leaving: what you built mattered, and it mattered to millions of players. Please take the time you need to process the change and remember you matter."

These 268 job cuts are part of a wider, months-spanning "reset" of Microsoft’s games business, led by recent Xbox CEO appointee Asha Sharma. Around 1,600 workers were laid off in July’s initial round, with total numbers expected to rise to an estimated 3,200, now likely to include the entirety of Senua developers Ninja Theory.