Although the announcement of the major layoffs coming to just about every aspect of Xbox's studios was leaked roughly a week before they went into effect on July 6, 2026, that didn't stop the impact from being one of the most brutal layoffs in gaming history. Along with job loss for thousands of employees as a part of the Microsoft restructuring, several partnered studios were also let go in the process, forcing them to become independent.
While several studios had been sold off rather than returning to their indie status, one of the many promising development teams that ended up retaining its own identity just got another major blow, making the already heartbreaking series of events even worse than before.
As a result of going independent and having to fund their own studio, Double Fine announced today on Bluesky that the studio has been forced to lay off 23 members of its staff to stay afloat as an independent organization. The team had been made up of roughly 90 employees before the announcement, meaning that the studio lost over a quarter of its original developers.
Unlike Microsoft's more distanced restructuring efforts, the developers at Double Fine noted that the decision...
