In July, I wrote a list covering nine upcoming Xbox games I hoped wouldn’t be cancelled. One of those was Contraband, a game we admittedly knew very little about, but had a strong pedigree, given Avalanche’s track record with Mad Max, Just Cause, and Rage 2.
Egg on my face when Xbox decided to cancel Contraband in August.
“Active development has now stopped while we evaluate the project’s future,” the developer said in a statement. “We’re thankful for the excitement we’ve seen from the community since we announced and will give an update on what’s next as soon as we can.”
Here we are, a little under two months following that announcement, and we have more news: Avalanche is closing its Liverpool studio.
In light of current challenges to our business and the industry, we have thoroughly reviewed how to best ensure Avalanche Studios Group’s long-term success. This review has led us to the difficult conclusion that we must make changes to our staffing and locations.
Avalanche’s statement confirms that all developers in Liverpool are affected, and additional changes will impact their other studio locations in Stockholm and Malmo, where they will “reduce our workforce and restructure the teams to address our games’ needs.”
Avalanche Liverpool’s Closure Is Yet Another Black Mark On The Xbox Brand
Say what you want about the games, and there have been some pretty solid first-party Xbox games in 2025, but it’s been a bad year for the Xbox brand.
In July, Microsoft cut nearly 4% (roughly 9,000 jobs) of its workforce, impacting several games in development, including Rare’s Everwild, an unannounced ZeniMax MMORPG, and the Perfect Dark reboot. Those layoffs followed Microsoft’s layoff of another 7,000 employees in the spring.
Again, as I mentioned when reporting on Contraband’s cancellation, Phil Spencer said that Xbox’s “platform, hardware, and game roadmap have never looked stronger.” At the Tokyo Game Show, during an interview, he discussed franchises he’d love to see revived, notably highly requested IPs such as Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey.
Don’t get me wrong; I’d love to see these games, at the very least, be playable on modern hardware, but here’s the thing: we’ve just had a highly requested franchise revival cancelled in Perfect Dark. Xbox studios are closing left and right; Forza Motorsport developer Turn 10 is now assisting on Forza Horizon 6 instead of making their own game.
There’s so much uncertainty in the industry as companies continue to consolidate or be acquired (most recently, EA is being acquired by investment firms for $55 billion). There was so much hope and optimism for the Xbox brand leading into this generation (well, at least I was optimistic that they could turn things around following the Xbox One generation), but instead, it’s just been a constant flurry of disappointments.
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Author: 360 Technology Group
