{"id":7389,"date":"2026-09-23T06:29:57","date_gmt":"2026-09-23T06:29:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/overhypedgamer.com\/?p=7389"},"modified":"2026-09-23T06:30:01","modified_gmt":"2026-09-23T06:30:01","slug":"halo-director-promoted-laid-off-xbox","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/overhypedgamer.com\/hr\/halo-director-promoted-laid-off-xbox\/","title":{"rendered":"Halo Director Was Promoted, Then Laid Off by Xbox the Next Day"},"content":{"rendered":"

Halo Studios cinematic director Josh Daniels says he was promoted only to be laid off by Xbox the following day, as Microsoft’s latest restructuring hits the Halo team.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Daniels announced the news on LinkedIn on Tuesday, revealing that he was among the employees affected by layoffs at Halo Studios after spending more than a decade working across Microsoft<\/a>‘s gaming studios.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The timing made his departure particularly unusual: Daniels had reportedly received a promotion just one day earlier.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

\u201cPromoted and laid off in the same week is pretty wild.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Daniels confirmed that he was among those affected by the Halo Studios layoffs and said he would now be looking for new opportunities in cinematic direction or production.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Josh Daniels Spent 11 Years With Xbox Studios<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Daniels had been working at Halo Studios since 2024<\/strong>, serving in cinematic production and direction roles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before joining the Halo team, he spent several years at Turn 10 Studios<\/strong>, where he worked on the Forza<\/a> Motorsport franchise beginning in 2015.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His departure comes as Microsoft carries out another major restructuring of Xbox, with 268 positions eliminated across Halo Studios, other first-party teams and Xbox Game Studios management and central functions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Next Halo Is Moving to Activision<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The layoffs also arrive alongside a major change for one of Xbox’s most important franchises.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Xbox announced Tuesday that the next Halo game will be developed at Activision<\/strong>, with the move accompanied by job cuts at Halo Studios.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

A smaller team at Halo Studios will remain in place to support the Halo community and existing games, although Microsoft hasn't detailed the studio's longer-term structure beyond that role.<\/code><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Reports suggest Activision’s project is intended to be a new mainline Halo installment<\/strong> rather than a smaller spin-off.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A separate unconfirmed report claims that a prototype for the game already exists and is awaiting approval from Microsoft. That detail has not been independently confirmed, so the project’s current development status remains unclear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With Halo development moving to Activision and layoffs now affecting longtime members of Halo Studios, Microsoft’s wider Xbox restructuring is beginning to significantly reshape how some of its biggest franchises are developed.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Halo Studios cinematic director Josh Daniels says he was promoted only to be laid off by Xbox the following day, as Microsoft’s latest restructuring hits the Halo team. Daniels announced the news on LinkedIn on Tuesday, revealing that he was among the employees affected by layoffs at Halo Studios after spending more than a decade […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3896,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_gspb_post_css":"","_shortscore_rating":"","_shortscore_game":"","_shortscore_summary":"","iawp_total_views":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"ohg_news_type":[170],"ohg_game":[265],"ohg_company":[184],"ohg_platform":[],"class_list":["post-7389","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","ohg_news_type-news","ohg_game-halo","ohg_company-microsoft"],"blocksy_meta":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/overhypedgamer.com\/hr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7389","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/overhypedgamer.com\/hr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/overhypedgamer.com\/hr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/overhypedgamer.com\/hr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/overhypedgamer.com\/hr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7389"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/overhypedgamer.com\/hr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7389\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7405,"href":"https:\/\/overhypedgamer.com\/hr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7389\/revisions\/7405"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/overhypedgamer.com\/hr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3896"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/overhypedgamer.com\/hr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7389"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/overhypedgamer.com\/hr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7389"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/overhypedgamer.com\/hr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7389"},{"taxonomy":"ohg_news_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/overhypedgamer.com\/hr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ohg_news_type?post=7389"},{"taxonomy":"ohg_game","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/overhypedgamer.com\/hr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ohg_game?post=7389"},{"taxonomy":"ohg_company","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/overhypedgamer.com\/hr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ohg_company?post=7389"},{"taxonomy":"ohg_platform","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/overhypedgamer.com\/hr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ohg_platform?post=7389"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}