The Xbox reset is afoot, and while there aren’t strictly speaking any studio closures yet, with multiple developers in the process of moving elsewhere, the shockwaves from its impact are still being felt across Xbox’s continually-shrinking staff. All in the service of a mathematically improbable 1 billion daily player count, or something. It’s hard to keep track.
Anyway, given Blizzard was namedropped in the announcement post as a target that’d be experiencing “reductions” and “shifting investment”, one might wonder if the developer—which Microsoft acquired for an eyewatering $68.7 billion—was on the chopping block.
The evidence points towards Blizzard escaping the reaper’s scythe, for now. First up is this Windows Central article, which both quotes anonymous sources to the affirmative and has an email from Blizzard President Johanna Faires that reads: “While you can expect to hear more details regarding the day’s events and what they mean for Blizzard in further communications.”
Then, there’s narrative designer and union member Benjamin Wagner, who wrote: “No union employees at Blizzard were impacted by today’s bloodbath—and I sincerely doubt that was because the powers that be think that we’re all vital. Odds are, they wanted easy cuts. Status Quo makes you not easy.”