Xbox Merges Playground Games & Turn 10 Into One Studio for Forza and Fable

As rumored earlier today, Xbox has officially announced that it will lay off 268 employees across Halo Studios, other first-party studios, and the XGS management and central functions layer. That’s not all; the company has also announced reorganization of major studios.

Among them, one change involves Playground Games and Turn 10 officially coming together as one studio. According to Xbox Game Studios president Matt Booty, the newly combined team will focus on the Forza and Fable franchises.

Microsoft says the two studios have already worked as creative and franchise partners for more than a decade, and the restructuring will now formally bring their work under one team.

The move is part of Microsoft’s wider Xbox reset, which is designed to reduce the number of business units and align teams that already work closely together.

Forza has traditionally been split across Microsoft’s racing-focused studios, with Turn 10 responsible for the mainline Forza Motorsport series and Playground Games known for Forza Horizon, while Playground is also developing the next Fable game.

Microsoft has not announced any cancellation of Forza or Fable projects as part of today’s restructuring. Rather, the company says the new structure is intended to strengthen its franchises and games by bringing related teams together.