Off The Record Podcast #175 - Why Does Xbox Keep Laying Off So Many People? Perfect Dark, Everwild, Rare & More (Patreon)

Published:

2025-07-04 12:10:19

Imported:

2026-06

Tags:

Banjo Banjo Kazooie Canceled game Cancelled Cancelled Games Cancelled MMO Cancelled Video Games Everwild FPS Gregg Mayles John Romero Laid off Layoffs Liam Robertson Liam Robertson Patreon Liam Robertson podcast MMO Microsoft Off The Record Off The Record podcast Perfect Dark Phil Spencer Podcast Ranger Rare Romero Games Sea of Thieves The Initiative Turn 10 Xbox Zenimax

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Content

We delve deep into the bloodbath that has unfolded this week at Microsoft as they have laid off more than 9,000 employees, closed entire studios and cancelled multiple major projects including Perfect Dark, Everwild, a new Zenimax MMO, a new John Romeo FPS, and more. We try to make sense of why this keeps happening at Xbox based upon things we've heard from developers over the years and try to answer why we think Xbox continues to decay like this.

Sources

My Crash 5 video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PzHwPNPW2VM

Eurogamer Xbox layoffs article: https://www.eurogamer.net/microsoft-xbox-layoffs-june-2025-tracking-the-situation-as-it-happens#coverage-61dro0

VGC Coverage of Rare layoffs + Gregg Mayles departure:

https://www.videogameschronicle.com/news/sources-banjo-kazooie-sea-of-thieves-director-leaves-rare-after-35-years-following-everwild-cancellation/

https://www.videogameschronicle.com/news/sources-everwild-has-been-cancelled-as-xbox-layoffs-hit-rare/

Perfect Dark developer Adam McDonald’s thread: https://bsky.app/profile/adammcdlt.bsky.social/post/3lt23bz2dwk2z

Romero Games layoffs message:

https://bsky.app/profile/romerogames.bsky.social/post/3lt2io5pmfk2v

Bloomberg Xbox Executives Playing Zenimax MMO article: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2025-07-03/microsoft-s-xbox-cancels-blackbird-an-upcoming-game-that-impressed-executives?accessToken=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJzb3VyY2UiOiJTdWJzY3JpYmVyR2lmdGVkQXJ0aWNsZSIsImlhdCI6MTc1MTU2ODYyNiwiZXhwIjoxNzUyMTczNDI2LCJhcnRpY2xlSWQiOiJTWVU2WjREV1JHRzAwMCIsImJjb25uZWN0SWQiOiJCMUVBQkI5NjQ2QUM0REZFQTJBRkI4MjI1MzgyQTJFQSJ9.qsy2COuNIZabsf38JG6uvZ2JOF4hCCs1hdYhMXpS9pw