Following the mass Microsoft layoffs this week which reduced the company’s global headcount by a gut-wrenching 9,000+, the Forza Motorsport series has reportedly been parked. This development has allegedly come as a result of the direct effects of this round of layoffs on Turn 10 Studios, the primary team behind Forza Motorsport for the past two decades. It’s thought that Turn10 will now function as a support studio for the Forza Horizon series, spearheaded by Playground Games.
Pit crew
This alleged state of affairs comes from a statement by former Turn10 Studios employee, Fred Russell. While he departed the studio all the way back in 2016, he seems to still have some connections with his former crew mates.
Russell took to his personal Facebook on July 3, 2025, posting: “Turn10 Studios has shuttered the Forza Motorsport space and the team is no more.”
Responding to a commenter on his post, Russell further explained that while Turn 10 remains open, it will now function as a support team for the continuing Horizon side of the franchise.
While it may seem likely for this information to be true given the confirmed layoff news from just a few days ago, this still needs to be labelled as a rumor for now. No official announcements have yet come from either Turn 10 or anyone at Xbox, but that could change.
Road hazards
The Forza Motorsport franchise has been in a curious position for the last few years. Turn 10’s release of Forza Motorsport 7 back in 2017 was the last project from the studio until 2023’s Forza Motorsport. The latter served as a reboot for the series, promising to deliver on a tighter, more dynamic racing experience. It had the longest development time of any game in the series, which explains the large release gap between it and its predecessor.
Despite all of its grand prospects, even after being hit with a delay, the game was released to a lukewarm reception. Many series veterans found it to be hollow and repetitive, lacking the charm and polish that past entries had. Considering that Forza Motorsport 7 faced similar criticisms at launch, several fans felt that Turn 10 had learned next to nothing despite the increased dev time.
Since then, Forza Motorsport (2023) has been updated and tweaked in many ways. From bringing back legacy content and addressing numerous issues, players are now much happier with the game. Still, there’s more work to be done, and now that progress is up in the air.
This news of the series’ alleged end would make such a demise rather unceremonious, not to mention a tad unexpected given Microsoft’s notably deep coffers and the immense brand power of the Forza franchise.
Even though it hasn’t been in its greatest form these past few years, Motorsport still stands as one of Xbox’s tentpole franchises. Yet, it’s becoming clearer than ever that Microsoft is determined to shed the idea of exclusives. In addition to many other games, the recent release of Forza Horizon 5 on the PS5 just a few months ago is one key example of that.
Speaking of Horizon, that branch of the franchise, initially a spin-off, has more-or-less become the de facto face of it all. Forza Horizon 5, in particular, has amassed the largest player count in the franchise’s history at a whopping 45 million. This was before it was released on Sony’s platform. It’s been the longest supported Forza game, with its final ‘big’ update, Horizon Realms, coinciding with the release of the PS5 version a near half-decade after its initial launch.
Consequently, this alleged move of Turn 10 now being downgraded to a mere support studio as Playground Games carves out the next Horiozn entry unfortunately doesn’t sound too far-fetched.
Should this be true, things will fundamentally go back to how they were when Sony’s illustrious Gran Turismo was the largest player in the genre throughout the 90s and early 2000s. Forza Motorsport was created to be its analog—it’s direct competitor. For many years, it was doing just that.
“How the mighty have fallen,” as the saying goes. Thankfully, there are other players on the grid.
Alumni of Slightly Mad Studios, yet another shuttered team, have come together to create a new title in the sim-racing space, Project Motor Racing. That’s set to release later this year. Meanwhile, former devs from Playground Games have also formed a new studio and are hard at work on a new open-world racer that’s set to rival the likes of Horizon.
Hopefully, the fallen members of Turn 10 (as well as their fellow laid-off contemporaries throughout Microsoft) will land on their feet. And, who knows? Maybe in a few years we just may see some Turn 10 alumni take a stab at a new project.
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