Xbox Halts Development of Avalanche Studios’ Contraband, Hideo Kojima’s OD Still in the Works

Avalanche Studios’ open-world co-op “smuggler’s paradise” game Contraband is no longer in active development with Xbox, the studio confirmed on its official website following reports by Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier and Game File. A Microsoft spokesperson also confirmed that OD, the collaborative title between Xbox and Hideo Kojima, is still in development.

“Over the past several years, Avalanche Studios Group and Xbox Game Studios Publishing have collaborated on Contraband,” Avalanche Studios said on its official website. “Active development has now stopped while we evaluate the project’s future. We’re thankful for the excitement we’ve seen from the community since we announced and will give an update on what’s next as soon as we can.”

The new comes just one month after Microsoft began the process of widespread layoffs across the company, including Xbox, with less than 4% of Microsoft’s global workforce being affected. Reports suggest roughly 9,100 employees have been affected.

A Microsoft spokesperson said, “We continue to implement organizational and workforce changes that are necessary to position the company and teams for success in a dynamic marketplace.”

As a result of the layoffs, Xbox canceled The Initiative’s Perfect Dark, Rare’s Everwild, and ZeniMax Online Studios’ unannounced MMORPG codenamed “Blackbird.” In regards to Everwild, the game has been in development in some form for more than 10 years. However, the developers struggled to formulate a clear direction for the game, even after a reboot.

Moreover, Xbox has shut down The Initiative. Activision subsidiary and Candy Crush developer King is also faced layoffs of 10% of its staff, or roughly 200 jobs. 50% of Turn 10 Studios, the developers of Forza, were also laid off.