Microsoft sent shockwaves through the gaming industry by laying off 1,900 Activision Blizzard employees, impacting several Call of Duty studios. As a result, some CoD players fear the franchise is falling down the same slippery slope as Halo Infinite.
Almost every CoD studio suffered cuts due to the massive Activision Blizzard layoffs. Employees from Raven Software, Sledgehammer Games, Treyarch, Toys For Bob, and High Moon Studio all posted they were let go. Some studios were hit harder than others, as Sledgehammer Games lost 30 percent of its staff and Toys For Bob reportedly cut around 40 percent.
CoD players questioned how this decision would impact the future of the franchise. Looking back on Microsoft’s track record, that fear is beginning to spread.
CoD players don’t want repeat of Halo Infinite
In November 2022, head of Xbox Game Studios Matt Booty admitted the Microsoft-backed studio “fell short” after Halo Infinite’s post-launch content failed to deliver. The long-awaited game peaked at around 20 million players, but the game’s first season lasted six months due to a delay of the next season, and Infinite’s third season didn’t go live until March 2023.
Halo Infinite developers 343 Industries suffered similar massive layoffs in January 2023, and Bloomberg reporter Jason Schreier revealed that Microsoft has a long, troubled history of using contractors. “As usual, one of Halo Infinite’s biggest development problems was labor,” Schreier said. A large chunk of 343 workers were on contracts and couldn’t stay longer than 18 months due to Microsoft restrictions. Full-time promotions were rare. So the studio was constantly losing talent and knowledge,”
CoD community members are worried that Microsoft will go the same route and turn to contractors to develop future games or post-game content like they did with Halo Infinite. “If Microsoft takes Call of Duty down the route of Halo, it will be disastrous,” CoD insider CharlieIntel claimed.
Other community members shared a similar sentiment. “Microsoft literally bought Activision just so they could ruin it just like they did with Halo,” a commenter added.
It’s still too early to tell what these layoffs mean for CoD’s future, but that hasn’t stopped community members from fearing the worst.
