Compulsion Games staff at the South of Midnight studio have been cleared by leadership to post openly on LinkedIn seeking new roles ahead of Xbox's expected early-July layoffs. A cluster of updates from writers, designers, and animators appeared in recent days, each phrased as a standard professional exit without mentioning cuts directly. Bloomberg's Jason Schreier clarified on Reddit that no formal layoffs have occurred yet, but the permission signals the studio's near-certain reduction.

The move aligns with broader reports of Microsoft restructuring first-party teams, where Compulsion sits alongside Ninja Theory and Double Fine in negotiations that could mean closure or a scaled-down independent path. Studio headcount estimates hover around ninety, and posts reference multi-year tenures plus shipped titles like We Happy Few. Earlier Kotaku coverage from mid-June flagged the studio as a target in cost-cutting talks.

These preemptive job searches mark the quiet prelude to whatever headcount decisions land next month, with similar patterns expected across other Xbox Game Studios outposts. The pattern of polite LinkedIn farewells before official announcements has become a reliable early indicator in recent industry cycles.