Activision Taking Over Halo: What Xbox Has Confirmed
Xbox confirmed today that Activision is taking over development of the next flagship Halo game, handing the project to a newly formed team inside the Call of Duty publisher. The announcement arrived alongside 268 additional job cuts across Halo Studios and other Xbox teams, detailed in an internal memo from chief content officer Matt Booty titled "Continuing Our Reset" (Game Informer, today; The Verge, today).
Xbox has not announced any changes to Halo: Campaign Evolved's previously stated 2026 release plan, and today's restructuring memo did not mention that game by name. Here's what's actually confirmed for Halo Infinite players, Campaign Evolved buyers, and anyone waiting on the next mainline title, and what's still just a leadership statement.
What Activision's Halo takeover means for players
Activision, which Microsoft acquired for $68.7 billion in 2023, will build the next flagship Halo title through what Booty's memo calls "a new, purpose-built team that is separate from ongoing development and plans for Call of Duty" (The Verge, today; GeekWire, today).
Activision president Rob Kostich said the company has "already begun assembling a purpose-built team, unique in capability and talent," with a stated goal to "make the greatest Halo game ever, worthy of its universe and legacy, while staying true to what made players love it in the first place" (GeekWire, today). That's a company goal, not a preview of what the game will actually look like.
Halo: Campaign Evolved still shows a 2026 release across Xbox Series X|S, Xbox on PC, Steam, and PlayStation 5, with Xbox Cloud Gaming and Xbox Play Anywhere support and day-one access through Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass (Xbox Wire, October 2025). Xbox has not announced a change to that 2026 plan, and today's memo doesn't mention it either way.
A small team at Halo Studios will keep supporting the Halo community and games already in market, according to Booty's memo (The Verge, today). The memo does not provide a full staffing breakdown, so how large that team is or how long it stays in that role is unknown.
The reports do not say whether the new team will inherit Halo Studios' Unreal Engine 5 pipeline or Project Foundry work. A release window, platform list, and gameplay details for the next flagship title are also missing entirely.
How the Halo move fits into Xbox's reset
Today's 268 cuts land inside a restructuring plan Xbox first announced in July, when it called the effort "the most significant restructure in XBOX history" and set a target of roughly 3,200 role eliminations across Microsoft's 2027 fiscal year, which runs through June 2027 (Xbox Wire, July 2026).
Xbox's stated reason for the overhaul: in a typical year, the division "lost 64 cents for every dollar" it invested. The July memo laid out plans to cut management layers down to five or fewer, three where possible, and to create a Chief Operating Officer role with end-to-end profit-and-loss authority across content, hardware, platform, and services. Helen Chiang was promoted into that position (Xbox Wire, July 2026).
The July plan said four studios would leave Xbox for new management. Compulsion Games and Double Fine Productions were set to return to independent operation, Ninja Theory and Undead Labs entered terms to join new ownership, and Arkane's French studio began a required consultation with its Works Council over its future, a process that was still ongoing rather than resolved (Xbox Wire, July 2026).
Today's 268 additional cuts hit Halo Studios, other first-party studios, and the Xbox Game Studios management and central-functions layer (Game Informer, today; The Verge, today). The same announcement expands Activision's remit beyond Halo: World's Edge, the Age of Empires studio, and Rare's Sea of Thieves team are both moving to the Activision side of Xbox (The Verge, today).
The Verge also reports Microsoft is likely closing Ninja Theory as part of this latest round, a claim the outlet frames as probable rather than confirmed (The Verge, today).
Microsoft says it is "roughly three-quarters" through the restructuring, while the reported role eliminations total nearly 1,900 of the 3,200 target, or about 59% (The Verge, today). The sources do not explain how the company's broader restructuring measure is calculated, but the gap means more than 1,000 planned reductions haven't been announced yet.
Xbox's July memo also stated that no publicly announced first-party games were being cancelled as part of the reductions. That line predates today's cuts and doesn't say anything specific about Campaign Evolved or the next Halo title (Xbox Wire, July 2026).
Halo Studios promised a "new dawn" less than two years ago
In October 2024, 343 Industries rebranded itself as Halo Studios and announced a full move to Unreal Engine 5, calling it a "new dawn" for the franchise with multiple new games already in development (Xbox Wire, October 2024). Studio leaders argued the switch would shorten how long it takes new developers to ramp up, since parts of the old Slipspace engine were, in their words, "almost 25 years old." The goal, as they framed it then, was to let the team focus on "making multiple new experiences at the highest quality possible" instead of maintaining proprietary tech.
That announcement also introduced Project Foundry, a prototype effort Halo Studios described as more than a tech demo, a genuine reflection of what a new Halo game built in Unreal Engine 5 would require.
Less than two years later, a small Halo Studios team supports live games while a newly formed Activision team builds the next flagship title. Game Informer characterized the consolidation as bringing two major shooter franchises, long treated as rivals in the console shooter genre, under one publisher (Game Informer, today). That's the outlet's read on what the reorganization means for the industry, not a statement from Xbox about how the games themselves will change.
What to watch before assuming anything about the next Halo game
More than 1,000 of the 3,200 planned fiscal 2027 role eliminations still haven't been announced, and neither Xbox nor Activision has said whether future cuts will touch Halo teams before mid-2027 (The Verge, today).
Xbox has not announced a change to Campaign Evolved's release date, platform list, or Game Pass availability. Treat any claims about the next flagship Halo game's scope, timeline, or design direction as unconfirmed until Activision or Xbox Game Studios says more than what's in today's memo and leadership quotes.
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