A former Turn 10 employee has essentially confirmed thatForza Motorsportis no more afterXbox’s recent round of mass layoffs, as the remaining team will now act as support forHorizon.
The last few days have been very depressing for anyone with anything to do with Xbox. Following the confirmation of mass layoffstotalling more than 9,000 employees earlier this week(which even included the closure of two studios), we’ve found out the sad fate of many different Xbox projects.
Some games, like Perfect Dark, Everwild, and anunannounced MMO from Zenimax, were cancelled, while others have fates that are currently unknown, likeAvalanche Software’s Contraband. If you thought that was bad, then it’s only going to get worse, as it turns out that Xbox has seemingly put a whole franchise on ice.
Forza Motorsport is seemingly no more
One of the first studios to have been confirmed to suffer from Xbox’s recent mass layoffs was Turn 10, who is known for developing the Forza Motorsport series. Forza has been one of Xbox’s most well-known franchises for some time now, so it was a surprise to hear that Turn 10 was hit so hard, even with Horizon racing ahead as the more popular series.
Turn 10 wasn’t just hit with layoffs, though, as it looks like the whole Forza Motorsport series has essentially been shelved due to the layoffs.As pointed out by Insider Gamingand originally highlighted byRedditor Fidler_2K on the GamingLeaksAndRumours subreddit, former Turn 10 employee Fred Russell confirmed that Xbox has “shuttered the Forza Motorsport space”.
Turn 10 Studios has shuttered the Forza Motorsport space and the team is no more. A very sad day for one of the best car racing video games. I loved my time there. - Fred Russell
In response to a comment on his Facebook post, Russell said that Turn 10 is “open to support the Horizon side”, and that it’s only the Motorsport side that’s been closed down. This essentially confirms that Xbox has no interest in making Forza Motorsport games going forward, and that what’s left of Turn 10 is going to act as a support studio for Horizon instead.
