World’s Edge Loses Nearly Half Its Team as Activision Takes Oversight

World’s Edge has been hit hard by Microsoft’s latest Xbox restructuring, with longtime Creative Director Adam Isgreen confirming that just under half of the studio was laid off, including himself. The cuts arrive alongside a major organizational change for the team responsible for overseeing Age of Empires and Age of Mythology, with Microsoft officially moving World’s Edge under Activision as Xbox consolidates more of its development and publishing structure around fewer business units. Microsoft has confirmed 268 job eliminations across Halo Studios, other first party studios, and Xbox management functions, but it has not provided a studio by studio breakdown of those losses.

"World's Edge was not spared completely. Just under half the studio was let go, myself included."
— Quote by: Adam Isgreen

Isgreen separately confirmed his departure through a LinkedIn post, bringing his 16 year career at Microsoft to an end. He reflected on work spanning Xbox Live Arcade, publishing, hardware initiatives, Killer Instinct, Fable, State of Decay, and ultimately the Age of Empires franchise, while expressing disappointment that his time with World’s Edge ended alongside many colleagues. More importantly for the future of the series, Isgreen said the team had plans for what was coming next and expressed hope that the employees who remain can continue that work. He did not say those projects had been cancelled, and Microsoft has not announced any cancellation connected to the World’s Edge reductions.

World’s Edge occupies an unusual position compared with a conventional internal development studio. Microsoft established the team in 2019 to oversee the Age of Empires franchise, provide creative direction, coordinate production, and work with external developers rather than build every game entirely inside one large internal team. Forgotten Empires has played a major role across the Definitive Editions and later Age projects, Relic Entertainment developed Age of Empires IV, while Tantalus Media worked with Forgotten Empires on Age of Mythology: Retold. That structure means losing nearly half of World’s Edge does not necessarily translate directly into half of the developers producing each Age title disappearing, but it does represent a major reduction in the central group responsible for franchise direction and coordination.

Microsoft’s latest Xbox restructuring officially states that Activision will expand its responsibilities to include both World’s Edge and Rare. This is an organizational transfer inside Microsoft rather than Activision acquiring either studio from Xbox, and Microsoft has not said that World’s Edge will lose its identity or that Age of Empires development will be folded directly into an existing Activision team. The change instead places the studio within Activision’s management structure at the same time Activision is taking responsibility for development of the next Halo game through a separate dedicated team.

The move is part of the broader Xbox studio consolidation that has reshaped Microsoft Gaming throughout 2026. Activision is gaining oversight of World’s Edge and Rare, Bethesda is taking responsibility for Obsidian, Playground Games and Turn 10 are being combined, and King is taking over Microsoft Casual Games. Microsoft says the changes completed since July, including studio separations and the latest layoffs, bring the company roughly 75% of the way through the restructuring it previously announced, meaning the process is still not finished.

For Age of Empires, the immediate question is how much of World’s Edge existing development roadmap survives the reduction. Isgreen’s comments confirm that future plans existed before the layoffs, but neither Microsoft nor Activision has detailed how the remaining team will be structured or whether responsibilities will move to external partners. Age of Empires has experienced a substantial revival under World’s Edge through remasters, new expansions, Age of Empires IV, Age of Mythology: Retold, and expansion beyond PC onto consoles and other platforms, making the scale of the reduction particularly significant for a team created specifically to provide long term stewardship of the franchise.

World’s Edge is not closing, and Activision taking oversight should not be confused with Activision directly taking over development of every Age of Empires project. The bigger concern is how much franchise management capacity remains after losing just under half of a relatively small team, particularly when World’s Edge exists specifically to coordinate multiple external developers and maintain a consistent direction across several Age properties.

Activision has considerable experience operating large franchises across multiple studios, so the new structure could provide stronger production resources and publishing support. At the same time, losing senior people such as Adam Isgreen means Microsoft is removing some of the institutional knowledge that helped rebuild Age of Empires after years of uncertainty. The next announcements around the franchise will show whether this restructuring primarily changes management or also reduces the scale of what World’s Edge had planned.

Do you think moving World’s Edge under Activision can strengthen Age of Empires, or does losing nearly half of the studio create too much risk for the franchise’s future?