Gaming
The Age of Empires Brain Trust Just Hit the Open Market
Microsoft's latest round of 268 Xbox cuts has landed hardest on the studio that guarded one of gaming's most beloved franchises. World's Edge, the team created to oversee Age of Empires the way a Marvel style studio manages a franchise, lost just under half its staff this week, with creative director Adam Isgreen among those departing after 16 years. The studio now sits under Activision's umbrella alongside Rare, which just inherited Halo.
The human details are what make this story. Isgreen wrote that the team had some great plans for what is next and expressed hope the remaining crew rises to the occasion. Senior software engineer Andrew Martz posted that the studio's next project was cancelled as part of the reorganization, and he was part of the layoff. Lead principal software engineer Greg Snook learned his last day with building access landed on his exact 25th work anniversary. Piece by piece, the reporting points to a new Age of Empires entry being the cancelled project, though Microsoft has confirmed nothing beyond the restructuring itself. The studio was always a peculiar creature inside Xbox. Rather than developing games itself, World's Edge managed the franchise across partner studios, overseeing the recent Age of Empires and Age of Mythology remasters plus Command and Conquer titles, while specialists like CaptureAge built the Age of Empires II DLCs and the Spectator Mode for Age of Empires IV.
The wider reset tells the same story of talent scattering. The Coalition's next Gears of War went gold ahead of its October 1 premium early access launch, and story director Juan Vaca was laid off in the same week. At Halo Studios, cinematic director Josh Daniels posted that he was promoted and laid off within days of each other. Across the division, Xbox leadership says the restructuring is roughly three quarters complete toward its announced 3,200 role target.
Here is the angle the headlines skip. the custodians of real time strategy are now free agents, and that is how genres get their second acts. World's Edge veterans carry the institutional knowledge behind Age of Empires IV and Age of Mythology Retold, the games that proved the RTS audience is alive and hungry. When a genre's brain trust disperses, its members seed new studios, and strategy gaming has a long history of renaissances born exactly this way. Strategy fans have seen this movie before and it usually ends well. Genre defining talent rarely sits still, and the independent studios these veterans join or found become the laboratories where the next evolution of the genre gets prototyped.
For RTS fans, the watch list just got interesting. The franchise itself continues under Activision stewardship, and the veterans' next moves are where the genre's future gets written. Follow the people, the press releases trail behind, because the next great strategy game is probably being sketched right now by someone who just cleaned out a World's Edge desk.
Quick answers
What is this story about?
Microsoft's latest round of 268 Xbox cuts has landed hardest on the studio that guarded one of gaming's most beloved franchises. World's Edge, the team created to oversee Age of Empires the way a Marvel style studio manages a franchise, lost just under half its staff this week, with creative director Adam Isgreen among those departing after 16 years. The studio now sits under Activision's umbrella alongside Rare, which just inherited Halo.
Why does this story matter?
For RTS fans, the watch list just got interesting. The franchise itself continues under Activision stewardship, and the veterans' next moves are where the genre's future gets written. Follow the people, the press releases trail behind, because the next great strategy game is probably being sketched right now by someone who just cleaned out a World's Edge desk.
Sources
- Kotaku, Microsoft's latest round of layoffs may have hit a brand new Age of Empires game
- Tech News Vision, Microsoft culled Age of Empires studio before handing it to Activision
- TechRaptor, Age of Empires studio nearly halved amid Xbox reset
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