Halo Game Reportedly Canceled As Part Of Layoffs

Xbox Reportedly Canceled A Halo Game That Was "Years Away" From Release Published Sep 24, 2026, 2:15 PM EDT Joshua Robertson is an editor for TheGamer, having working in news, guides, features, and reviews since 2022. They have written thousands of news stories, ranging from industry-breaking events, to smaller, more personal community pieces, and have covered several high-profile showcases such as The Game Awards and Nintendo Directs. Joshua is considered an expert in soulslikes, horror, JRPGs and everything Final Fantasy, having written extensive coverage for massively popular online titles like Final Fantasy 14. Sign in to your TheGamer account It's been another brutal week for Xbox, having announced yet another wave of layoffs in an attempt to try and restructure the whole organization into something more sustainable. One of the biggest victims this time around was Halo Studios, which has had the game it's named after taken from them and essentially turned into a support studio. Xbox Canceled A Halo Game As Part Of The Recent Layoffs According to a new report from The Verge, Halo Studios is now a skeleton crew that will oversee the running of Halo Infinite and the recently released Halo: Campaign Evolved (most likely before it's also vanished into the night down the line), but one thing that Xbox didn't tell us was that it apparently pulled the plug on a new Halo game alongside the layoffs. In the same report, it's claimed that an anonymous source told The Verge that the next big Halo game was in development at Halo Studios before Microsoft hit the team with mass layoffs. As part of those, Microsoft essentially "pulled the plug" on the entire project, meaning Xbox's decision to hand Activision the reins to Halo did result in a new game in the series getting scrapped. However, it was also stated by this source that the game Halo Studios was working on was "years away" from release, so it's not like it was about to rush out the door. That would also imply that Xbox has kind of lost faith in Halo Studios delivering a good Halo game, seeing as it would rather cancel one and start from scratch with Activision. After two back-to-back mediocre releases in Halo Infinite and Halo: Campaign Evolved, you can kind of see why such a drastic change needed to be made, but that doesn't really excuse Xbox just gutting Halo Studios entirely. I'm sure it had more than enough resources to place the studio under Activision like it did with Rare rather than just lay people off entirely. Hell, you could also maybe argue that the decision to name the whole thing 'Halo Studios' was a mistake in the first place — then the developers could have maybe moved onto something new while someone else took a stab at Halo. Then again, that's probably a bit too forward-thinking for the AAA gaming industry these days.