Adam Isgreen, creative director at World's Edge for over 16 years at Microsoft, confirmed on ResetEra that just under half the studio was cut in the latest Xbox restructuring, with him among the casualties. The move folds the Age of Empires custodian under Activision alongside Rare, part of a broader shuffle that also hands the next Halo to a new Activision team and merges other studios while eliminating 268 roles total.

Senior software engineer Andrew Martz posted on LinkedIn that the team's next project was shelved as a direct result. Isgreen's LinkedIn follow-up listed credits spanning Windows Phone, Xbox Live Arcade, Ori, Minecraft, Killer Instinct, and multiple Age of Empires releases, closing with disappointment over plans that will now never happen for those let go.

This fits the pattern from July's announced 3,200 cuts across FY2027, where Xbox CEO Asha Sharma framed the reset as necessary because margins sit three to ten times below comparable businesses. The studio, founded in 2019 specifically to steward the franchise after Ensemble's closure, now operates at roughly half strength under new oversight.