{"id":14868,"date":"2026-10-01T14:59:10","date_gmt":"2026-10-01T11:59:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/?p=14868"},"modified":"2026-10-01T17:42:59","modified_gmt":"2026-10-01T14:12:59","slug":"after-crunching-hard-through-their-final-months-gears-of-war-e-day-developers-are-reportedly-now-expecting-layoffs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/2026\/10\/01\/after-crunching-hard-through-their-final-months-gears-of-war-e-day-developers-are-reportedly-now-expecting-layoffs\/","title":{"rendered":"After &#8216;Crunching Hard&#8217; Through Their Final Months, Gears of War: E-Day Developers Are Reportedly Now Expecting Layoffs"},"content":{"rendered":"<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">Gear of War: E-Day developers are reportedly in no mood to celebrate the game&#8217;s imminent release, following months of overtime and fresh fears of further layoffs.<\/p>\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">That&#8217;s according to a Eurogamer report that includes comments from various sources at The Coalition, Microsoft&#8217;s dedicated Gears of War team that has been working on E-Day for the past five years. <\/p>\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">Microsoft has made numerous rounds of redundancies over that time, though staff at The Coalition say they previously felt somewhat insulated from the job losses due to their work on such a high-profile project. But as their time building Gears of War: E-Day has wound down \u2014 a period that has also reportedly seen them &#8220;crunching hard&#8221; \u2014 there are now serious concerns that layoffs may soon be on the horizon for them, too. <\/p>\n<p><span data-cy=\"slideshow-view-trigger\"><\/p>\n<div data-cy=\"slideshow-preview\" class=\"jsx-1711207865 slideshow-preview\">\n<h3 class=\"title5 jsx-62124236 jsx-1085005187\" data-cy=\"slideshow-preview-title\">The Complete Gears of War Timeline (So Far)<\/h3>\n<div data-cy=\"slideshow-images-container\" class=\"jsx-1711207865 images-container\"><button type=\"button\" data-cy=\"hero-image\" aria-label=\"Open Slideshow\" class=\"jsx-1711207865 hero-image\">&lt;img alt=&quot;Welcome to the Gears of War timeline, which includes the games, novels, and comics.<\/p>\n<p>There are some story spoilers for all Gears of War lore throughout the slideshow, so be wary of reading slides for stories you&#8217;ve not yet finished.&#8221; decoding=&#8221;async&#8221; class=&#8221;progressive-image jsx-2277167929 image aspect-ratio aspect-ratio-16-9 jsx-2605834259 jsx-2338608387 hover-opacity&#8221; loading=&#8221;lazy&#8221; src=&#8221;https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/after-crunching-hard-through-their-final-months-gears-of-war-e-day-developers-are-reportedly-now-expecting-layoffs.gif&#8221; data-cy=&#8221;progressive-image&#8221;&gt;<\/button><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">&#8220;The mood is certainly &#8216;let&#8217;s not celebrate the game until we&#8217;re three months post launch, just in case&#8217;, which is very unusual,&#8221; one source said.<\/p>\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">&#8220;We&#8217;re just expecting the next wave [of layoffs], or being reorganized under Activision or something later this year,&#8221; claimed another.<\/p>\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">Xbox boss Asha Sharma unveiled a plan to cut 3,200 jobs across the company this year back in July, when the first 1,600 redundancies were announced. Then, last month, a second batch of layoffs were confirmed alongside major structural changes that saw Halo Studios downsized and the franchise handed to Activision, which will also manage veteran British studio Rare. With such seismic changes for Xbox&#8217;s flagship shooter franchise, suddenly nothing seemed as certain for its Gears of War team.<\/p>\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">Staff say they are now &#8220;on edge&#8221; for the hammer to drop, especially following the &#8220;very demoralizing&#8221; layoff of Gears of War: E-Day story director Juan Vaca, who was recently culled just two weeks before the game&#8217;s release. <\/p>\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">&#8220;I can only imagine the heartbreak of spending all those years on a game to have the final stretch ripped away, completely out of your control,&#8221; another source said, commented on Vaca&#8217;s departure. &#8220;It&#8217;s like you planned for a year on a meal for your family where everyone will be there and the day of, you get locked out of the building or something and can&#8217;t join in.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">Microsoft declined to provide an official response to Eurogamer for its report, though it is understood that Microsoft has acknowledged staff have worked hard on getting E-Day out the door, and that this extra effort includes out-of-hours toil that will be repaid in additional holiday.<\/p>\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">Xbox is yet to detail when its final round of layoffs this year will take place, though even if The Coalition is told it&#8217;s safe for now, some staff have suggested they still won&#8217;t breathe a sight of relief. &#8220;It&#8217;s hard to believe anything [Microsoft leadership] say anymore after discarding staff in this manner,&#8221; one employee stated.<\/p>\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">Last week, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella described the Xbox layoffs as &#8220;streamlining&#8221; at the company that was &#8220;great to see.&#8221;<\/p>\n<section class=\"author-sign-off\" data-cy=\"author-sign-off\"><span class=\"stack jsx-59817748 jsx-1927875859\"><\/p>\n<div class=\"rounded jsx-444076027 jsx-1730475047 profile-thumb jsx-2141281959 aspect-ratio aspect-ratio-1-1\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Tom Phillips Avatar\" class=\"progressive-image profile-thumb-img jsx-249361588 jsx-2338608387 expand\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/after-crunching-hard-through-their-final-months-gears-of-war-e-day-developers-are-reportedly-now-expecting-layoffs.jpg\" data-cy=\"progressive-image\"><\/div>\n<p><span class=\"stack jsx-2509706801 jsx-3630940851\"><\/p>\n<div class=\"interface jsx-1132626198 sign-off-text\">\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">Tom Phillips is IGN&#8217;s News Editor. You can reach Tom at tom_phillips@ign.com or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><\/span><\/span><\/section>\n<div class=\"media_block\"><a href=\"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/after-crunching-hard-through-their-final-months-gears-of-war-e-day-developers-are-reportedly-now-expecting-layoffs.webp\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/after-crunching-hard-through-their-final-months-gears-of-war-e-day-developers-are-reportedly-now-expecting-layoffs.webp\" class=\"media_thumbnail\"><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"media_block\"><a href=\"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/after-crunching-hard-through-their-final-months-gears-of-war-e-day-developers-are-reportedly-now-expecting-layoffs.webp\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/after-crunching-hard-through-their-final-months-gears-of-war-e-day-developers-are-reportedly-now-expecting-layoffs.webp\" class=\"media_thumbnail\"><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14869,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"Default","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[50],"class_list":["post-14868","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-49","tag-50"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14868","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14868"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14868\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14870,"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14868\/revisions\/14870"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14869"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14868"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14868"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14868"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}