{"id":2160697,"date":"2026-09-24T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-09-23T21:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2160697"},"modified":"2026-09-24T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2026-09-23T21:00:00","slug":"forza-horizon-and-motorsport-developers-set-to-come-together-as-one-studio-says-xbox","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2160697","title":{"rendered":"Forza Horizon and Motorsport developers set to \u201ccome together as one studio\u201d says Xbox"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Xbox has announced that the two studios behind Forza Horizon<\/em> and Forza Motorsport<\/em> will, to paraphrase the Spice Girls, become one. That new merged team will focus on both Forza<\/em> and Fable<\/em> games.<\/p>\n

The news was announced via Xbox\u2019s news wire<\/a>, where a frighteningly regular stream of layoff announcements have been posted in recent years. Entitled \u2018Continuing our reset\u2019, the sort of language to make your forehead sweaty if you saw it appear as a subject line in an intra-company email, it details Xbox chief content officer Matt Booty\u2019s larger plan for all the studios it owns, including 268 layoffs.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

That\u2019s in addition to the 1600 layoffs announced back in July. Yikes. It\u2019s not specified how many roles will be affected by this Playground Games and Turn 10 merger, however. \u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThese two studios have been creative and franchise partners for over a decade,\u201d says Booty, \u201cand today\u2019s changes will formally move their work into one team.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

It\u2019s a strange full circle moment for the Forza<\/em> franchise. The original Horizon<\/em> team had to pitch their spinoff game to Turn 10 and Microsoft and convince them it sat flush within the franchise\u2019s previously straight-faced, Gran-Turismo-like image. 15 years later, it\u2019s all one entity.<\/p>\n

Forza Horizon 6<\/em> has been predictably successful since its launch in May, selling over six million copies so far. We called it \u201cthe best racing game you\u2019ll play this year\u201d<\/a> in our review. Months later that still holds true, despite the imminent brilliance of Star Wars: Galactic Racer<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Fable<\/em>, meanwhile, is a more leftfield marriage of developer and genre. An RPG series originally created by Peter Molyneux\u2019s Lionhead Studios, it\u2019s all about the consequences of player choice on a dynamic fantasy world. Now in Playground Games\u2019 hands, a reboot is scheduled for February 2027.<\/p>\n

As the latest gameplay shows<\/a>, it\u2019s one of the most exciting upcoming games out there. Not just because it realises its fantasy world with such crisp precision, but because it\u2019s also really leaning into a very British sense of humour. Distinct voices and creative risks are as rare these days as \u2013 well, as rare as a week without an announcement about layoffs on the Xbox news wire, so we\u2019re keenly anticipating this one.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not clear how this affects the Forza Motorsport<\/em> series, which has been a bit quiet since the mixed reception to 2023\u2019s, um, Forza Motorsport<\/em>. Hopefully there\u2019s room in that omni-studio for both flavours of Forza<\/em>, but that remains to be seen.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Xbox has announced that the two studios behind Forza Horizon and Forza Motorsport will, to paraphrase the Spice Girls, become one. That new merged team will focus on both Forza and Fable games. The news was announced via Xbox\u2019s news wire, where a frighteningly regular stream of layoff announcements have been posted in recent years. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[226,237],"class_list":["post-2160697","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-crawlmanager","tag-topgear-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2160697","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2160697"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2160697\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2160697"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2160697"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2160697"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}