Gears Of War: E-Day's Story Director Laid Off Two Weeks Before Release

Gears Of War: E-Day Just Went Gold, So Xbox Laid Off Its Story Director The Coalition Published Sep 23, 2026, 3:07 AM EDT Josh Coulson is an editor at TheGamer covering breaking news on everything from colorful platformers to the latest Lego sets. Primarily a news writer since 2018, Josh has covered just about every major game from the past decade. Now an editor, their focus has shifted to being the leading affiliate expert at the site, building relationships between TheGamer and global brands including Mattel, Funko, and The Pokemon Company. Sign in to your TheGamer account The second wave of Xbox layoffs was confirmed on Tuesday, with what’s believed to have been close to 300 more people being let go across various Xbox-owned studios. That includes Juan Vaca, the story director on the upcoming Xbox exclusive, Gears of War: E-Day. Xbox Lays Off E-Day's Story Director Vaca broke the news on LinkedIn (spotted by Kotaku). “I am part of this round of Microsoft Layoffs and am open to new opportunities in games/film/tv,” Vaca revealed in a post shared shortly after Xbox confirmed news about its latest round of layoffs. There are a couple of things that make Vaca’s inclusion in these layoffs even more confusing and heartbreaking than most others swept up in all this. The most obvious is that E-Day, the game on which Vaca has been working as a story director, isn’t only not out yet, but it is two weeks away from being released. The other is the last post Vaca shared before the one announcing he had been laid off. “Gears of War: E-day has gone Gold. Excited for the world to see what the whole team's been cooking.” Not only was that the last post on Vaca’s LinkedIn before the layoff reveal, but that news was shared only four days before the story director lost his job. Gears Of War: E-Day Went Gold Less Than A Week Ago It’s currently unclear how many people at Gears’ studio The Coalition were caught up in this latest round of Xbox layoffs. A source familiar with the situation told Kotaku that Vaca was not the only one, but that the cuts at The Coalition were unrelated to the restructuring Xbox detailed on Tuesday. When a game “goes gold”, it means development is effectively complete, and the game is ready for launch; hence it typically happening with a few weeks to go until release day. Unconfirmed at present, but it sounds a lot like E-Day going gold conveniently coincided with Xbox’s plans to cut more staff, allowing it to show some E-Day devs the door now that the game is finished and ready for release day on October 6. Ubisoft It has, unfortunately, started to become commonplace that developers are let go shortly after or, as is the case here, before the game they’re working on has even launched. 51 employees who worked on Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced lost their jobs before the remake was released, and a significant chunk of the team that worked on Star Wars: Zero Company were placed on furlough as Bit Reactor almost ran out of money with weeks to go until launch. The restructuring at Xbox this week includes some significant shifts. There is barely anyone left at Halo Studios, with Xbox breaking the news that Activision is now in charge of the next Halo game. Obsidian now operates under Bethesda; Playground and Turn 10 have combined to work together on future Forza and Fable games, and a potential buyer for Senua studio Ninja Theory fell through, which means, barring a last-minute miracle, it will likely be shut down. Systems Released October 6, 2026 ESRB Mature 17+ / Intense Violence, Blood and Gore, Strong Language, In-Game Purchases, Users Interact Developer(s) The Coalition Publisher(s) Xbox Game Studios Engine Unreal Engine 5 Genre(s) Third-Person Shooter, Action, Adventure, Horror