Xbox setting Compulsion and Double Fine free is the only good thing to come out of Microsoft's layoffs

Published: July 7, 2026

Xbox's layoffs are catastrophic. 1,600 people lost their jobs in one day. 3,200 will lose their jobs by June 2027. If you include all of Microsoft, that number jumps to a staggering 4,800 - around 2.1% of the company's overall workforce (as surveyed in 2025). We all knew that Xbox's ominous July 6 'layoff day' would be bad; I'm not sure we quite expected something of this scale.

The immediate repercussions are obviously gut-wrenching; people have and will lose their jobs. It's important to keep the human cost of all of this in mind; the games industry can't function without developer passion. On the flip side, however, some of the best studios out there are either going independent, or will be overseen by new management. The latter is still a slightly scarier prospect, but at least it's a freshish start. The former, however, means more independent videogame studios, and I'm all for that.

Let's take Compulsion as an example. While I'll never say it was flawless, I have very fond memories of We Happy Few. As a videogame experience, it wasn't great: it was janky, the survival loop was overly punishing, and it struggled with performance. What made it so iconic, however, was the sheer imagination on display; the neo-dystopian, post-war Britain themes; the stiff-upper-lip mentality, carefully moderated and curated via systemic drug use. I wanted it to be a better videogame - I still do when I play it every few years - but I can't help but applaud the ingenuity.

It's that same creative spirit that drew me to South of Midnight. Aesthetically, it was gorgeous, and in terms of narrative, it told a truly unique, meaningful Black story. Yet again, however, it really struggled with the gameplay; the stop-motion movement was great in principle, but vaguely headache inducing in practice, and the repetitive, uninteresting combat grew old very, very quickly. The final boss fight remains a huge fumble, and the game felt like it wrapped up a little too quickly - I suspect a money pot ran out somewhere.

I don't entirely lay the blame with Compulsion for South of Midnight's lackluster launch, however. It's no secret that triple-A developers - Ubisoft, Xbox, EA - have consistently tried to make games for everyone over the past few years. It feels, in many ways, like there's a tickbox: open world? Check. Combat? Check - after all, everybody loves combat. South of Midnight didn't need any of that; in some ways I wish it had gone in a similar direction to the likes of Death Stranding or Indika. As someone who loves Compulsion for its storytelling abilities, I'd rather have just spent time wandering around soaking in the bayou, parkouring up magical, living trees while hearing its stories.

That idea flies in the face of triple-A development, however; it breaks away from the established 'what makes a good videogame' plan. Double Fine's Keeper - also published by Xbox Game Studios - took that route, and received a woeful lack of advertising and promotion despite rave reviews. These aren't the types of games triple-A wants to publish, so perhaps it's good that Xbox has simply let them go.

It's no secret that the independent and double-A spheres are where the innovation is at; Expedition 33, Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, and Blue Prince proved that. Compulsion and Double Fine returning to a world where they have the creative freedom to do whatever they want is a good thing - no more red tape, no more checkboxes. I hope that this means we'll finally see games that are authentically them; the ones that made us fall in love with them as developers in the first place. I know that I'll be doing whatever I can to support them - be that buying their games, or writing about them here. Every little thing helps.