Xbox: The State of Every First-Party Developer - Summer 2025 Update

Wait 5 sec.

2025 has not been the best year for Xbox. Microsoft’s recent massive company-wide layoff impacted up to 9,000 employees, nearly half of whom worked at Xbox. Multiple games were cancelled, “AAAA” studio The Initiative was shut down, and countless talented staff lost.It’s a strange and uneasy contrast, then, to see that Xbox has actually had a pretty good year when it comes to games. Its biggest first-party releases so far this year have been Obsidian Entertainment’s Avowed, Compulsion Games’ South of Midnight, Bethesda’s Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered, and id Software’s Doom: The Dark Ages. The company has also pushed forward its multiplatform plans with a few ports for the PlayStation 5, including the previously Xbox and PC exclusives Forza Horizon 5 and Senua’s Saga: Hellblade 2.That good chain of games looks set to continue as many developers and studios at Xbox continue their hard work. There are numerous video games in development at Xbox across multiple divisions today, from Bethesda, Activision Blizzard, and Xbox Game Studios. To help keep track of them all, we’ve collected everything we know about every Xbox studio and their current projects below.Arkane StudiosArkane Studios, the developer behind the Dishonored series, was previously spread across two locations: one studio in Austin, Texas, which developed Prey, and another in Lyon, France, which most recently released Deathloop.On May 7, 2024, Xbox closed Arkane’s Austin branch following the tepid release of its horror co-op shooter, Redfall. However, Arkane Lyon remains open and continues work on the studio’s next game, Marvel’s Blade.Announced at the 2023 Game Awards, Marvel’s Blade is an upcoming action-adventure game starring the iconic vampire hunter who’s on a mission to protect Paris from an oncoming vampire invasion. And in a big departure from the first-person games Arkane is typically known for, Blade will be playable in the third-person perspective. Deathloop director and studio head Dinga Bakaba will co-direct Blade alongside Arkane’s long-serving art director, Sebastien Mitton, and Bakaba has said he’s excited to bring Arkane’s unique take on Blade to life. According to Arkane’s financial statements for 2024, Blade entered full production at the end of last year.Bethesda Game StudiosOfficially, Bethesda Game Studios has one big game on the horizon: The Elder Scrolls 6. The next mainline game in the beloved fantasy RPG series was announced way back in 2018 at a long-forgotten event called E3. Crucially, the announcement came simultaneously with the reveal of Starfield, and Bethesda was hard at work creating the space-faring RPG. The developers reiterated to the public many times that The Elder Scrolls 6 would not enter full production until after Starfield was released.Now, following the launch of Starfield in 2023 and the expansion DLC Shattered Space in 2024, Bethesda is finally all-in on The Elder Scrolls 6. As part of The Elder Scrolls' 30th anniversary on March 25, 2024, Bethesda announced that the next Elder Scrolls was fully in development, and that there are even early builds of the game up and running.While The Elder Scrolls 6 is officially Bethesda’s only project, Windows Central’s Jez Corden reports that the next Fallout game has also been greenlit. If that’s true, it comes with many questions, including if the new Fallout is being developed by Bethesda Game Studios or handled by another developer, much like how Obsidian Entertainment developed Fallout: New Vegas.Blizzard EntertainmentBlizzard Entertainment remains focused on three core franchises: Diablo 4, Overwatch 2, and World of Warcraft. Following the cancellation of an unannounced fantasy survival game codenamed Odyssey back in 2024, Blizzard has narrowed its focus to concentrate on improving its most popular games. Overwatch 2 is still receiving regular updates. After Blizzard cancelled the planned PvE story mode back in 2023, much of the focus has been on improving the PvP competitive modes. Since the launch of Overwatch 2, Blizzard has released an average of three new playable heroes per year. The next hero coming to Overwatch 2 is a new support character named Wuyang, who is scheduled to be released as part of Season 18. And earlier this year, Blizzard released a new competitive multiplayer format called Stadium, where teams of five fight in a best-of-seven series, and in each new round players can purchase new upgrades for their heroes, similar to Riot’s Valorant.Diablo 4 operates on a seasonal update schedule, with larger DLC expansions that add more significant upgrades and story content. The first expansion, titled Vessel of Hatred, released on October 7, 2024, added a massive new jungle region called Nahantu as well as a new Spiritborn character class that controls the ancient powers of the jungle to wield both long-range and melee abilities. The latest season, Sins of the Horadrim, launched just last month and adds Nightmare Dungeon upgrades and Horadric Spells, among numerous other new additions.As for World of Warcraft, Blizzard did something unprecedented at BlizzCon 2023 and announced not one, but three expansions for the popular MMORPG. Starting with The War Within, released on August 26, 2024, Blizzard kicked off the Worldsoul Saga, an overarching story that will unite the three expansions. The next expansions in the Saga are titled Midnight and The Last Titan, but so far, we don’t know when these entries will launch.Furthermore, Blizzard has committed to supporting World of Warcraft Classic, which recreates World of Warcraft at earlier release states. WoW Classic is currently on Cataclysm Classic, the fourth expansion ever released for WoW.Compulsion GamesFollowing We Happy Few in 2018, Canadian-based Compulsion Games released its newest game, South of Midnight, on April 8, 2025. South of Midnight is an action-adventure game set in a fantastical version of the Deep South. The game follows a young mystic named Hazel Flood on her journey to become a Weaver, a magical mender of broken spirits. Along the way, Hazel encounters numerous mythical creatures and enemies based on Southern Gothic folklore. IGN gave South of Midnight an 8 in our review, calling it “a straightforward but well-executed action-adventure game on the surface, with a simple but satisfying mix of combat and platforming.”There’s been no word yet on what Compulsion Games is working on next.The CoalitionXbox’s dedicated Gears of War studio has quite the busy schedule ahead of it. Canada-based The Coalition is gearing up for the release of Gears of War: Reloaded, a 4K remaster of the original Gears of War game. Reloaded is set to release on Xbox Series X and S, PC, and – for the first time ever – PS5 on August 26, 2025.But this is just an appetizer for Gears of War: E-Day, the next mainline Gears of War game set 14 years before the events of the original. Marcus Fenix (John DiMaggio) and Dom Santiago (Carlos Ferro) will return in a prequel that finally tells the full story of Emergence Day, when monstrous creatures known as the Locust emerged from underground and destroyed the planet Sera. Gears of War: E-Day is currently scheduled to release sometime in 2026.Double Fine ProductionsDouble Fine had been keeping quiet following the release of Psychonauts 2 in 2021, but all that changed when the studio announced its next game, Keeper. Keeper was first revealed at this year’s Xbox Summer Game Showcase and will be released on October 17, 2025. Described as a “story told without words,” Keeper is a puzzle adventure game starring a sentient lighthouse and a spirited seabird as they make their way through a magical realm. If you saw the trailer for Keeper and thought it was breathtaking, you should know that Double Fine’s Lee Petty, the art director on Brutal Legend and Broken Age, is the creative lead on Keeper.Halo StudiosHalo Studios, formerly known as 343 Industries, is currently working on multiple new Halo projects, including an unannounced game made in Unreal Engine 5. Despite working on perhaps the most significant Xbox series of all, Endgadget reported that Halo Studios was impacted by the company-wide layoffs at Microsoft and that, behind the scenes, there are tensions over the direction of the studio.Provided things all remain steady, the current plan is for Halo Studios to reveal its new game at the Halo World Championships in October 2025.Id SoftwareTexas-based id Software has already released one of IGN’s favorite games of 2025, Doom: The Dark Ages.Released on May 15, Doom: The Dark Ages is a heavy metal, dark fantasy prequel to 2016’s Doom. Id Software intentionally went for a slower, tankier approach to combat with The Dark Ages, taking away some of the Doom Slayer’s speed and agility. In exchange, he has access to heavier weapons like a flail and shield he can throw at enemies, a la Captain America. There’s also our new favorite weapon, the skull-crushing Pulverizer, which uses enemy bones as ammo.IGN gave the newest Doom game a 9, calling it “a new flavor of the legendary shooter series that’s heavier and more grounded, but no less energetic and exhilarating.” If you haven’t played Doom: The Dark Ages yet, it’s worth checking out for sure. Naturally, considering The Dark Ages was only released this year, there’s no word yet on the studio’s next game.Infinity WardActivision maintains a continuous development cycle to uphold an annual Call of Duty release cadence. That means the franchise’s key studios – Infinity Ward, Treyarch, Raven Software, and Sledgehammer Games – each trade off lead development duties on the newest Call of Duty game. The studios not working on this year’s installment will be working on either next year’s game or the year after.The last Call of Duty title Infinity Ward led development on was 2022’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. The studio then assisted Sledgehammer Games on 2023’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, and Treyarch with last year’s Call of Duty: Black Ops 6. This year’s entry, Call of Duty: Black Ops 7, is co-developed by Treyarch and Raven Software, meaning the studios will have been lead developers two years in a row. It’s unknown whether Infinity Ward is assisting on Black Ops 7 or working on another Call of Duty project.Inxile EntertainmentAfter being acquired by Xbox in 2018, the RPG specialists at InXile Entertainment are finally getting ready to release their first game under the Xbox Game Studios banner, Clockwork Revolution.The first-person RPG is set in a vibrant, steampunk version of the 19th century where crime and violence thrive. Amid an escalating turf war between local gangs, criminal kingpins, and the local government, you gain the ability to manipulate time, which will surely come in handy during the ensuing conflict.Clockwork Revolution was first announced in 2023, and InXile says it’s the studio’s biggest game to date in terms of scope and budget. Based on the most recent gameplay trailer from Xbox’s Summer Games Showcase, it certainly appears to be a deep RPG with multiple dialogue options that affect the outcome of certain situations, a deeply customizable character creator, and numerous weapon modifications. However, Clockwork Revolution still doesn’t have a firm release window.KingSweden-based mobile game developer King remains in charge of one of the most successful mobile games of all time, Candy Crush. While King has taken brief detours away from the series, working on mobile games like 2021’s Crash Bandicoot: On the Run and 2020’s Knighthood, King continues to release new Candy Crush games, most recently Candy Crush Solitaire in 2025.Despite its flagship series’ continued success, King was affected by the Microsoft layoffs, with 10% of its total workforce cut.MachineGamesSwedish developer MachineGames blew everyone away with its stellar reboot of Wolfenstein back in 2014, and most recently surprised everyone with the announcement that it was making a new Indiana Jones video game – a totally different style of experience, aside from all the Nazis, of course.Starring the famous archaeologist in a new, globe-trotting adventure, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle was critically acclaimed thanks to its fantastic mix of first- and third-person gameplay, an uncanny performance by Troy Baker that sounds almost exactly like Harisson Ford circa-1980, and ultimately its ability to capture the exact tone of the better Indiana Jones movies in video game form. MachineGames is following up its hit release with the first story DLC, The Order of Giants, which was announced at this year's Xbox Summer Games Showcase and will be released on September 4, 2025.Mojang StudiosThe Sweden-based studio behind Minecraft continues to release regular updates for its massively popular crafting game. The most recent update for Minecraft, titled “Chase the Skies,” was released on June 17, 2025, and adds 60+ biomes, new buildable structures, and the ability to explore the overworld from the skies with a new mount called Happy Ghast.In addition, Mojang produced a live-action Minecraft film, which was released earlier this year. Starring Jack Black and Jason Mamoa, A Minecraft Movie is currently the third-highest-grossing film of 2025 and the second-highest-grossing video game film of all time after 2023’s The Super Mario Bros. Movie.Ninja TheoryUK-based Ninja Theory released Senua’s Saga: Hellblade 2 on May 21, 2024, the long-awaited sequel to 2017’s Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice. With Senua’s story wrapped up, Ninja Theory could be shifting focus to Project: Mara, a horror game the studio first teased back in January 2020. While Ninja Theory hasn’t shared too much information about the upcoming horror game, the studio explained in a video diary that Project: Mara will be a “real-world and grounded representation of mental terror.” This is an area that’s of great interest to Ninja Theory, as both Hellblade and Senua’s Saga also examined mental health in great detail by combining binaural audio effects for the psychosis-inflicted voices in Senua’s head with actress Melina Juergens’ powerful performance.Additionally, Windows Central reports that Xbox has greenlit another game from Ninja Theory alongside Project: Mara, but nothing else is known about that game.Obsidian EntertainmentObsidian Entertainment is having itself a very busy 2025. Earlier this year, the studio released Avowed, a fantasy RPG set in the Pillars of Eternity universe. In IGN’s review, we gave Avowed a 7, calling it a reminder of why we fell in love with Obsidian’s RPG but ultimately a game that plays it “quite safe” overall.Up next is Grounded 2, a sequel to the 2022 online co-op game about a group of kids who are shrunk down to miniature size by a science experiment gone wrong and must survive the dangers of their suburban backyard. Grounded 2 will hit Early Access on July 29, 2025.Finally, the biggest game on Obsidian’s calendar is The Outer Worlds 2. The first Outer Worlds game was a sci-fi RPG co-directed by Leonard Boyarsky and Tim Cain, the creators of the original Fallout series, and shares much of Fallout’s morbid humor and world-building sensibilities. The Outer Worlds depicts a retro-futuristic version of outer space that’s been poisoned by unchecked capitalism. All that may sound a little too much like VaultTech, but it’s certainly got its own distinct flavour. The first Outer Worlds became a sleeper hit, selling over four million units and receiving numerous Game of the Year award nominations, and the sequel looks to expand on that success. Based on our IGN First previews, The Outer Worlds 2 maintains the irreverent tone of the original game, while greatly expanding upon the game’s combat and exploration. It’s set to release on October 29, 2025.Playground GamesThe UK-based Playground Games is best known for its work on Forza Horizon, an open-world arcade racer spinoff of Xbox’s more serious racing-sim, Forza Motorsport. However, in 2020, Playground Games was officially announced as the developer behind the upcoming Fable reboot. In the years since, we’ve sadly learned very little about it, despite a handful of trailers showcasing the comedic tone, semi-realistic art style, pre-alpha gameplay, and celebrity cameos from famous UK comedians like Matt King and Richard Ayoade. Originally planned to launch this year, Fable was recently delayed into a 2026 release window. We hope to see much more of the game in the coming months.RareRare was deeply impacted by the recent company-wide layoffs at Microsoft. The famed developer behind games like Goldeneye 007 and Banjo-Kazooie has spent the better part of the past decade releasing regular updates for its popular online pirate game, Sea of Thieves. However, Rare was also working on Everwild, a third-person fantasy adventure game that was first announced in 2019. At some point in 2021, it was reported that Everwild was experiencing development difficulties and underwent a complete reboot. However, following the layoffs at Microsoft, Xbox announced internally that Everwild would be canceled. In addition, longtime Rare director Gregg Mayles, who had reportedly been lead on Everwild following its reboot, resigned from the studio he first joined in 1989.While work on Sea of Thieves will likely continue, it’s unclear what the next steps are for the venerable British studio.Raven SoftwareRaven Software is part of Activision’s stable of dedicated Call of Duty developers and is the co-developer of the upcoming Call of Duty: Black Ops 7, which it is working on alongside Treyarch. The two studios previously led development on 2024’s Call of Duty: Black Ops 6, with Raven developing the single-player campaign. In our review, IGN gave Black Ops 6 a 9, calling it “the best Call of Duty campaign in many, many years.” Will Raven and Treyarch be able to follow up on their prior game’s success when Black Ops 7 is released later in 2025? We’re excited to find out.Sledgehammer GamesCalifornia-based Sledgehammer Games is another Call of Duty studio working under the Activision umbrella. It previously led development on 2023’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, and before it, Call of Duty: Vanguard.While Sledgehammer was listed as an assist studio on 2024’s Call of Duty: Black Ops 6, it was also reported that the studio lost 30% of its staff in a round of layoffs back in 2024, and it’s unknown whether Sledgehammer will be able to lead development on a new Call of Duty game going forward.TreyarchAlongside Raven Software, Treyarch is the co-developer of the upcoming Call of Duty: Black Ops 7. As one of the longest-running developers at Activision, Treyarch has worked on Call of Duty games since as early as 2005’s Call of Duty 2: Big Red One. Treyarch is responsible for founding the very popular Black Ops sub-series, and is also responsible for developing Call of Duty’s Zombies – most recently for 2021’s Vanguard, 2023’s Modern Warfare 3, and last year’s Black Ops 6. Turn 10 StudiosWashington-based Turn 10 Studios was once the home of Xbox’s racing sim Forza Motorsport, but all that appears to have changed following the recent layoffs at Microsoft. According to Bloomberg’s Jason Schrier, Turn10 reportedly lost nearly 50% of its staff in this year’s layoffs, and the studio is effectively “shuttered.” Further reports suggest that the Forza Motorsport series will no longer be supported, and remaining Turn 10 staff will serve as an assist team on the spinoff series, Forza Horizon.Undead LabsSeattle-based studio Undead Labs has been working on State of Decay 3 for the past several years. The third game in the popular zombie survival sim series, it was officially announced in 2020. However, there have been multiple reports of behind-the-scenes trouble at the studio leading to its slow development.First, studio founder Jeff Strain left Undead Labs in 2021 to start up a new studio, Possibility Space (which faced its own internal struggles). This was followed by a 2022 investigation by Kotaku into a toxic work environment at the studio, which resulted in an internal Microsoft investigation and the departure of studio HR boss, Anne Schlosser. These issues have reportedly contributed to the delay of State of Decay 3, which still doesn’t have a release window.World’s EdgeWorld’s Edge was established by Xbox Game Studios in 2019 to be the stewards of the Age of Empires real-time strategy series. Since its inception, World’s Edge has released a number of remasters, starting with Age of Empires 2: Definitive Edition in 2019, and the most recent being Age of Mythology: Retold. A remaster of the original Age of Mythology, it focuses on ancient civilizations and the gods they worshipped. It was released on September 4, 2024.World’s Edge isn’t solely dedicated to remasters, though; it also released a new entry into the series, Age of Empires 4, back in 2021 to positive reviews. It’s unclear if its next step will be to continue working on its remasters (AoE2: Definitive Edition continues to receive expansion packs) or develop an entirely new project. ZeniMax Online StudiosThe Maryland-based ZeniMax Online Studios has been releasing continuous updates to The Elder Scrolls Online since the game’s launch in 2014. The MMORPG spinoff of Bethesda’s popular Elder Scrolls RPG series has quietly grown to become one of the biggest MMOs in the world, alongside games like World of Warcraft and Final Fantasy 14. Behind the scenes, it was reported that ZeniMax Online Studios was also impacted by the recent Microsoft layoffs. Not only has veteran studio boss Matt Firor stepped down from the company, but an unannounced game known only as Project Blackbird was also canceled.While Bloomberg reported that Xbox executives were “blown away” by Project Blackbird, Xbox still announced internally that it was cancelling the game. Reports have since come out with more details about Project Blackbird. The game was set to be a new sci-fi MMO where players would navigate the politics of warring gangster factions on an alien planet where one side of the planet is engulfed in fire and the other covered in ice. ZeniMax Online Studios was reportedly staffing up to begin full production on Project Blackbird before it was canceled. And while work will continue on The Elder Scrolls Online, developers have shared online how devastating the news of Project Blackbird’s cancellation has been.The fallout of the Microsoft layoffs is still being felt throughout the industry and will likely shape Xbox as it heads into the next generation. Not only have games been canceled, but entire studios, like The Initiative, have been shut down, and games like the Perfect Dark reboot have gone with them. While there are still Xbox games to look forward to on the horizon, the future of Xbox remains an open question.Matt Kim is IGN's Senior Features Editor.