As part of a new restructuring, Xbox laid off 268 employees, including some staff from Halo Studios.
The Halo series has been transferred to Activision. A new specialized team is being created for the project, which will work separately from the current developments of Halo Studios and will not be connected to Call of Duty plans.
Halo Studios is not completely removed from the franchise. A small team within the studio will continue to support the Halo community and already released games in the series.
Concurrently, Microsoft is reorganizing its internal studios. According to the company's statement, the main goal of the changes is to strengthen existing franchises and future games by reducing the number of separate business units, combining teams that already work closely together, and more clearly focusing publishing functions.