Several former employees of 343 Industries and members of the Halo Infinite team have taken to Twitter to criticize Microsoft following a dramatic series of layoffs. Staff from Bethesda Game Studios, The Coalition, and 343 Industries were all swept up in the massive layoffs, making some of Microsoft’s former developers question the company’s leadership.
Several days ago Microsoft announced plans to lay off 10,000 employees across multiple studios, accounting for 5% of the company’s workforce. Financial insiders believe that Microsoft’s declining share value, combined with economic factors within the tech sector is the reason behind the layoffs.
Veteran Halo developer Joseph Staten announced he was leaving 343 Industries amid the layoffs, causing some on social media to question the future of the Halo franchise. Former 343 employee Tyler Owens took to Twitter to express his disdain for Microsoft, claiming the software giant abuses contracting policies for tax advantages and was primarily concerned with shareholders’ profits. Owens said that Microsoft set Halo up for failure, and its policies slowly killed the franchise.
This comes amid an antitrust warning from the EU regarding Microsoft’s proposed takeover of Activision-Blizzard. Amid the chaos at Microsoft, former developer Patrick Wren posted that the Halo Infinite team worked hard, and the layoffs shouldn’t have happened. He blamed the current state of Halo Infinite on incompetent leadership within Microsoft’s upper echelon, which caused major stress to the Halo team and prevented the game from reaching its full potential.
Many fans have voiced concerns about the future of Halo and felt that 343 Industries has done an admirable job of bringing the franchise into the next generation. In a blog post last year, 343 stated it was committed to improving Halo Infinite with each update, but the game never gained the traction that was expected.
Upon release Halo Infinite multiplayer was the most downloaded game on Steam. However, player numbers dropped off sharply after a short time as players became disenchanted with Infinite’s mechanics and the slow progression of crucial updates. Still Halo Infinite remains popular despite the troubling series of events at Microsoft as it attempts to absorb many high-quality development studios.