Xbox is currently in the middle of its big corporate “reset,” which has involved the company shuffling around franchises and teams while it continues to lay off workers. And while this has all been happening, The Coalition launched Gears of War: E-Day, a well-received Xbox-exclusive prequel to the original trilogy. Many are wondering what the studio’s future holds. Coalition studio head Mike Crump says the team is focused on what it “can control.”
In a new interview with the BBC, Crump was directly asked about the recent Eurogamer report that claims numerous Coalition devs are nervous about the Xbox laying off staff after shipping E-Day earlier this month. He didn’t share any details about the studio’s immediate future or if cuts were coming and instead suggested the goal is just to make good games people like and promised the next Gears game won’t take as long to make.
“What I say to myself, what I say to the team, is we just need to focus on the things that we can control,” said Crump. “For us that’s about shipping a great game that people are going to love, and I feel like, as a team, we’ve done that.”
According to Crump, E-Day is a “great foundation” for future Gears titles, and he told the BBC that “the next game will not take nearly as long” to create.
He then added something that feels almost like Crump is trying to convince any Xbox leadership reading this interview not to make cuts to the studio, as it would disrupt the decades of experience the team has developed since it took over Gears of War back in 2014.
“We’ve got a great team here. And the leadership team in particular has worked together for upwards of 20 years,” said Crump. “So there’s definitely a continuity of knowledge and experience.”
The Coalition has mostly dodged Xbox’s layoffs, though the game’s story director and others were laid off last month, as Kotaku reported.