As part of Xbox’s ongoing cost-cutting measures, it looks like the company has now set a hard deadline for the ultimate fate of Arkane Lyon. According to French publication Le Monde, Xbox has given Arkane Lyon until November 13th to find a new buyer. The report has noted that, in the wake of this, two unions have issued warnings about the studio’s potential closure.
Arkane Lyon was seemingly informed of this back on July 16th, following which the unions described a “stupor” that has since turned into a “very great anger” due to decisions made by Xbox that are being called “incoherent”. If the studio is to shut down following the lack of a new buyer, around 217 jobs will be cut.
Further in the report, another union representative has noted that the studio is in good financial health, and that development has been continuing on Marvel’s Blade. The title has been described as being near the end of production, and those working on the project have expressed quite a bit of confidence in its potential success.
When Xbox CEO Asha Sharma had announced the 1,600 job cuts back in July, she had also noted that the company was divesting itself of four of its studios – Undead Labs, Compulsion Games, Ninja Theory, and Double Fine Production. Arkane Lyon was also mentioned in this context, but Sharma noted that the company was trying to figure out its future with the studio at the time.
Following this, Arkane founder Raphael Colantonio had taken to social media with a tongue-in-cheek question to Sharma about how much the studio would potentially cost to acquire. “Regarding Arkane… how much? I’m asking for a friend,” wrote Colantonio. However, it is worth noting that he was likely only joking about a potential acquisition of Arkane. This joke was further bolstered by several replies he got from fans of the studio’s works asking if they could send him money to help this potential acquisition.
In the meantime, Sharma has also confirmed that Xbox is looking at cutting around 1,600 more jobs across the company before the end of the fiscal year. The last major layoffs were followed up more recently by another round impacting 268 workers. This was done alongside some major restructuring that brought the Halo franchise under Activision’s purview, and merged Forza Motorsport developer Turn 10 Studios with Forza Horizon and Fable developer Playground Games.
More recently, a report has indicated that Xbox is gearing up for another round of major layoffs before the end of the month. This will seemingly be followed by two more rounds – one in November and the other in January 2027.
Earlier this month, Sharma had reportedly spoken during an internal meeting about how the company has “started to return to growth” following its massive layoffs. This period of growth comes after what she described as a “freefall” following the company’s decision to raise the subscription prices for Game Pass, which in turn had led many to simply cancel their subscriptions. Sharma also praised “strong” starts seen by recent games like Minecraft Dungeons 2 and Gears of War: E-Day, and praised the interest in World of Warcraft: Forever’s beta test.
