Juan Vaca, the story director on Gears of War: E-Day, has confirmed that he was among more than 260 employees affected by the latest round of Microsoft and Xbox job cuts. The news arrived only four days after he celebrated the game reaching gold status.
On September 22, Xbox announced further redundancies and studio changes as part of an ongoing corporate “reset”. The restructuring also includes moving Halo under Activision and combining the Forza teams into one studio. These cuts follow a much larger round of layoffs announced in July.
Vaca confirmed his departure through social media, posting Vaca on LinkedIn and Bluesky that he was seeking new opportunities across games, film and television. He invited teams looking for a director or storyteller to contact him.
He joined The Coalition in 2022. His role involved guiding narrative teams and cross-discipline groups as they developed stories from the initial concept through to execution.
The number of other affected staff at The Coalition has not been disclosed. A source familiar with the situation said fewer than a handful of people at the studio were cut for reasons separate from the wider Xbox restructuring. The same source said plans for Gears of War: E-Day remain unchanged.
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Vaca’s layoff is particularly striking because, on September 17, he announced that Gears of War: E-Day had gone gold. In traditional game-production terms, that milestone indicates that development has reached a finished state suitable for manufacturing physical discs, although post-launch work can still occur.
“Gears of War: E-Day has gone Gold. Excited for the world to see what the whole team’s been cooking,” Vaca wrote.
The game is scheduled to launch on October 6. Despite the staffing changes, the available information indicates that the release plan has not changed.
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Update, September 22, 2026, 3:14 p.m. ET: Additional information was added about the impact of the cuts.
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