Xbox merges Forza makers Playground and Turn 10 into one team
Xbox is folding its two Forza studios into a single team. Playground Games and Turn 10 Studios will now operate as one developer, Microsoft announced on 22 September 2026.
Xbox chief creative officer Matt Booty said the studios have been creative and franchise partners for over a decade. The change formally moves that joint work into one team, according to details reported by GameSpot. Booty has also called them "technological, creative, and franchise partners" for the same period, as reported by The Verge.
The pairing goes back a long way. Turn 10 Studios was established in 2001 to build racing games for Microsoft Game Studios. It went on to develop eight games in the Forza Motorsport series, the track-racing side of the franchise, with the latest Forza Motorsport launched in 2023.
Playground Games built the other half of the garage. It developed the first Forza Horizon game, the open-road series, which was released in 2012. Xbox announced on 10 June 2018 that Playground had joined Microsoft Studios. At the time, Playground worked exclusively with Turn 10.
The merger follows a hard stretch for Turn 10. The studio was hit by large Xbox layoffs in July 2025. It then ended development of new content for Forza Motorsport and shifted to working as a support studio, a team that assists another lead developer rather than leading its own game, for Playground Games. After those cuts, former Forza Motorsport content coordinator Fred Russell said the Turn 10 team was "no more".
The studio move is part of a wider reorganisation of Xbox. A total of 268 Xbox roles are being made redundant as part of a previously announced second wave of job cuts. Playground Games and Turn 10 will not be included in a separate consolidation that expands the portfolios under Activision and Bethesda.
That wider shake-up includes a new home for another Xbox series. Activision is set to develop the next Halo game, according to Variety. The reorganisation comes after months of pressure on the division, including reports in June 2026 about planned layoffs, budget cuts and options considered for the Xbox unit, including a possible spin-off.
For fans, this means one address for Forza's future. Playground Games and Turn 10 are already working together to bring Forza Horizon 6 to PlayStation 5 post-launch. That job now sits with a combined racing team.
