Gears of War: E-Day officially went gold several days ago–indicating that the game is ready to hit its October launch date–but sadly, story director Juan Vaca was caught up in the latest wave of Xbox “reset” layoffs. After posting about the game hittings its new milestone, Vaca revealed that he was one of over 260 people who was impacted by job cuts at Xbox.
“I am part of this round of Microsoft Layoffs and am open to new opportunities in games/film/TV,” Vaca wrote on LinkedIn. “If your team needs a director/storyteller please reach out.”
Vanca spent over four years at Gears of War: E-Day developer The Coalition, working as a story director. He’d previously interned at Marvel Studios, worked as a narrative designer at Telltale Games, and was employed at Netflix for three years, where he worked on several series. As mentioned above, he’s one of hundreds of people affected by the continued reorganization of Xbox, as this week saw further consolidation of its various studios under Activision Blizzard, Bethesda, and King.
The fresh round of layoffs has hit first-party developers, management, and central functions teams at Xbox Game Studios, and they come in the wake of 1,600 people being made redundant back in July. They also aren’t over yet, as Xbox boss Matt Booty says that Microsoft is only three-quarters of the way done so far and Blizzard is expected to face cuts next.
Another high-profile layoff was that of Halo Studios’ cinematic director, Josh Daniels, just a day after he received a promotion. The studio has been heavily impacted by cuts, leaving a small team to focus on supporting current games in the series and the Halo community. As for the next Halo game, it’ll be developed by a new team at Activision.
Gears of War: E-Day launches on October 6.