It’s been a rocky time for developers at Microsoft, which just laid off about 4% of its workforce, translating to about 9,000 lost jobs. This includes deep cuts at a number of gaming studios under the Xbox banner, including teams like Blizzard, Rare, Turn 10, and more. As part of these layoffs, at least one studio, The Initiative, has been shut down and multiple projects, like an unannounced MMO from ZeniMax Online Studios, have been canceled.
The slow trickle of news from the layoffs, including the depth of many of the cuts, has left uncertainty about upcoming projects from a number of the affected studios. While Xbox leadership has reportedly clarified that every title shown at its most recent showcase is “safe,” there are still other games that didn’t appear and are worth checking in on. To that end, we’re cataloging all of Xbox’s announced and/or rumored titles that appear to still be in development following its most recent cuts.
Grounded 2
Obsidian is in full swing with two sequels launching this year, the first of which to launch is Grounded 2. Releasing into early access on July 29, the sequel to the hit co-op survival game now features mountable insects–which have been cutely dubbed “buggies”–and continues the story of the four teens who were originally shrunk down to insect size in the first game. This time around, they’ll be fighting to survive in an entirely new environment with a fresh new batch of enemies and challenges to overcome.
Gears of War: Reloaded
If the imminent arrival of Gears of War: E-Day in 2026 has you buzzing and you’ve never checked the series out, Gears Reloaded is a perfect opportunity to hop onboard. Coming August 26, Reloaded is the second remaster of the original Gears of War, packaging all of the content released for the first remaster, bumping the game up to support 4K resolution (as well as 60fps in the campaign and 120fps in multiplayer), and finally porting the game over to PC and PlayStation for the first time.
Keeper
One of Xbox’s most recently announced titles, Keeper comes from Double Fine Games, the studio behind 2022’s critically acclaimed platformer Psychonauts 2. In it, you play as a sentient lighthouse in an apparently wordless adventure across a fantastical land that’s undergoing some pretty surreal changes. Along the way, the player is accompanied by a bird that I’m sure will factor into solving puzzles they’ll come across. It’s exactly the kind of weird game Double Fine is known for making, and considering Keeper’s recent debut at the Xbox showcase, it seems on track for its October 17 launch.
Ninja Gaiden 4
Ninja Gaiden is back with a flashy and brutal fourth installment, and nothing appears to be stopping it. Well in development and practically right around the corner, this joint venture from Platinum Games and Team Ninja will be Izuna dropping on all of our heads on October 21, which appears to be a very busy month for Xbox. This sequel to the renowned 3D action games follows both longtime protagonist Ryu Hayabusa and series newcomer Yakumo, who, despite being from rival families, will come together to save Tokyo from the threat of the Dark Dragon.
The Outer Worlds 2
The Outer Worlds 2, the upcoming sequel to Obsidian’s satirical RPG about capitalist dystopias, seems primed to be one of Xbox’s biggest games of the year. Releasing on October 29, The Outer Worlds 2 is seemingly bigger (but still familiar) in every conceivable way: It features more vibrant weaponry, a more fleshed-out quirky perk and trait system, more tough choices to be made, and bigger worlds than the first game. Considering how Obsidian has quietly become Xbox’s golden studio, it’s safe to say this team and game will make it to launch.
Call of Duty: Black Ops 7
Believe it or not, a new Black Ops game is already on the horizon, coming off of the sixth being released just last year. Though some of the teams that work on Call of Duty were affected by the layoffs, the cuts are unlikely to delay, let alone cancel, one of the biggest games of the year. We’re due for more information on Black Ops 7, which is due out later in 2025, soon, but for now we know the game will star Milo Ventimiglia of Heroes and This Is Us fame, and continues the story of one of the sub-series’ long-running villains, Raul Menendez.
Clockwork Revolution
Clockwork Revolution is a cheeky new first-person RPG from InXile, a team most known these days for its time on the Wasteland series. Taking up a huge chunk of time in the recent Xbox show, Clockwork Revolution is a safe bet despite its ambiguous release window of “in due time.” Appearing a lot like if BioShock Infinite were an RPG, the steampunk game seems to feature deep character customization, a refreshing sense of humor, and most importantly, time-bending powers that can be deployed in combat and outside of it to affect the world and story.
Gears of War: E-Day
It’s been a while since anyone’s seen Gears of War: E-Day, but the upcoming shooter–which is being co-developed by The Coalition and People Can Fly–is seemingly safe and on-track for release in 2026. At least, that’s what Xbox head Phil Spencer said at the end of the company’s June showcase, when it showed off a slate of new titles. The title is a reference to the in-fiction “Emergence Day,” on which the series’ central enemies, the Locust, first appeared, making the latest Gears game a prequel. Set 14 years before the original Gears of War, E-Day is an origin story that will once again follow Marcus Fenix and his brother-in-arms Dom Santiago and will seemingly harken back to the series’ roots, including a return to more linear levels.
Fable
Much like Gears, Fable is often heard about but so rarely seen. Announced back in 2020, the series reboot, which is being led by Forza Horizon dev Playground Games, is coming in 2026, according to Phil Spencer. To date, we’ve still only seen a smidgen of pre-alpha gameplay, showing the main character traversing a fantasy land that sure looks a lot like the original setting of Albion, fighting off a number of creatures, and kicking a chicken clear across a field. Suffice to say, the new Fable is looking a lot like the Fable of old, with a brand-new coat of paint.
Next Forza Horizon Game
We don’t know much at the moment about an upcoming Forza game except that one is happening. Just like Gears: E-Day and Fable, Spencer confirmed its existence, and that it’s coming 2026, at the end of the Xbox showcase in June. Due to significant layoffs at Turn 10 and the reported cancellation of the Forza Motorsport games, it is believed that the studio will now be supporting Playground Games, which is currently working on Fable, to develop the next open-world Forza Horizon game instead.
State of Decay 3
State of Decay 3, the next entry in Xbox’s hit zombie-survival series, is still on the horizon. Initially announced with a pretty bleak trailer back in 2020, developments on the forthcoming sequel have been pretty quiet save for a similarly somber trailer shown off back in 2024. Just when we’ll see the game again remains unclear, but Undead Labs remains hard at work on the game with a team bigger than that of the first two games.
Marvel’s Blade
We know very little about Arkane’s upcoming Blade game about the fan-favorite Marvel vampire slayer. Taking place in Paris, France, the third-person game will likely fold in elements from Arkane’s history of stealthy immersive-sims (like Dishonored and Prey) to deliver a stylish take on the hunter popularized by Wesley Snipes’ iconic performance in the Blade movies of the early aughts. Despite rumors that the game was cancelled amidst the layoffs, Arkane seems to still be intact and the project appears to still be in development.
OD
Hideo Kojima’s upcoming horror game OD appears to still be happening at Xbox, following rumors that their publishing partnership may have been severed after the recent layoffs at Microsoft. OD, which has no shortage of star power attached–Hunter Schafer, Sophia Lilis, and Udo Kier are set to star, while Jordan Peele is co-writing the game with the auteur developer–marks Kojima’s return to the horror genre after the cancellation of Silent Hills and his departure from Konami to found Kojima Productions. Little else is known about the game, save for the fact that it will leverage Microsoft’s cloud technology for immersion and that Kojima has frequently described it as something between a game and a movie.
More Halo
Much has been made of Xbox’s signature franchise, Halo, since the turbulent development, launch, and post-launch period of Halo Infinite, which was released in 2021. In recent years, the developer–once known as 343 Industries and rebranded as Halo Studios in 2024–has tried to correct its course, eventually righting many of Infinite’s ills and making promises to a fanbase hungry for something solid after years of games released to increasingly mixed reception. While we know very little concrete information about the next Halo game, we do know that another mainline title is in development, that it has moved away from the studio’s proprietary Slipstream Engine in favor of Unreal Engine 5, and that multiple other games in the series are currently being planned. So if you thought you’d seen the end of Halo anytime soon, think again.
The Elder Scrolls VI
Despite job cuts at Bethesda, The Elder Scrolls VI is most definitely still in development. Around the time of Xbox’s last series of layoffs, leadership there signaled that it would be prioritizing what it called “high-impact games,” which likely includes Bethesda’s two megaton RPG franchises, Fallout and Elder Scrolls, and others like them. Though news has been fairly light on the TES6 front since its announcement in 2018, Bethesda’s studio head Todd Howard recently claimed that the team was “obviously” still at work on the heavily anticipated RPG. If there was any doubt about the series’ continued relevance, this year’s Oblivion Remastered quickly became 2025’s second-best-selling game of the year in the US.
New Toys for Bob Game
Toys for Bob has one of the most interesting stories of all the developers mentioned here: It used to be an Xbox-owned studio under Activision-Blizzard before spinning off and securing its independence. Then it inked a publishing deal with Microsoft. Since then, developers at Toys for Bob have come forward expressing interest in developing a Banjo-Kazooie game, which would fall in line with the studio’s lineage of working on legacy platformers like Spyro and Crash Bandicoot, even going so far as to develop a brand-new game in the latter series. As of now, there’s been no word that Toys for Bob’s deal with Microsoft has been terminated.
Project: Mara
No one really knows what the deal is with Ninja Theory’s Project Mara. First unveiled in 2020, the game was teased as a psychological horror game about “true mental terror,” set within a single apartment. It also appeared to leverage the team’s incredible motion capture technology, which has most recently been seen in Hellblade II: Senua’s Saga, to render it as photorealistically as possible. However, the studio hasn’t really spoken about Project Mara since its announcement, even though it finally got Hellblade II out the door last year and will port it over to PS5 later in 2025.
Contraband
Frustratingly, Contraband is probably the game we know the least about, despite knowing about it for so long. The announcement trailer from 2021 makes clear that it is a co-op heist game being made in partnership with Avalanche Studios–best known for the Just Cause series–but that’s about all we’ve ever learned about the upcoming title. Otherwise, it’s been radio silence from both Xbox and Avalanche. Still, no news of it in light of the recent layoffs seems like good news for players looking forward to the game, whenever it comes out. Avalanche’s website also lists a number of job openings, some of which specifically mention Contraband, further suggesting it’s still in development.
