Marvel's Blade may not survive as Xbox weighs shutting down five studios

A day without grim Xbox news is getting genuinely hard to picture. This time it is Arkane on the hot seat, the studio currently building Marvel's Blade, reportedly on the verge of being shut down. And that is just the opening act.

According to The Verge's Tom Warren, who cites people familiar with Microsoft's plans, the company is weighing the closure of at least five studios. Alongside Arkane, the teams said to be at risk are Compulsion Games, Double Fine, Ninja Theory, and Undead Labs, the folks behind State of Decay 3. The wider layoff wave is apparently getting announced next week.

So what happens to Blade now?

If the report holds up, Marvel's Blade is not looking too sharp. There is a sliver of hope, though. Warren says Microsoft is "exploring options" and hunting for buyers, so Arkane could get sold off instead of shuttered. Whether anyone actually steps up to buy is a whole other question. Blade was announced way back at The Game Awards 2023, and that reveal trailer is basically the last anyone has seen of it. Remember being hyped for it? Vaguely, same.

The damage goes well past the studios themselves. Rumors point to 1,000 or more job losses across the Xbox gaming division, with the cuts possibly starting on July 6. That is not a typo. A thousand people.

So yeah. Asha Sharma's "Xbox Reset" is about to get a lot more concrete over the coming days, and honestly the phrase sounds more ominous every single time. What do you make of all this? Let us know in the comments.

Source: The Verge