Microsoft’s latest round of job cuts may have brought an unannounced Age of Empires project to an early end. The possibility has emerged after major changes at World’s Edge, the Xbox group responsible for guiding the strategy franchise.
World’s Edge reportedly lost at least half of its staff, apparently including studio creative director Adam Isgreen, and was moved under Activision’s organisation. Those changes have raised questions about the future of a new game that may have been in development.
What the staff comments suggest
The available evidence comes from public comments shared by Idle Sloth on X. Before the layoffs, Isgreen wrote on LinkedIn that World’s Edge had “some great plans for what’s next”. Andrew Martz, a senior software engineer known for his time at Gearbox, separately stated on LinkedIn that “our next project was cancelled.”
A post attributed to the former World’s Edge creative director said the team had plans for what came next, while expressing hope that the remaining staff could pursue those ideas later.
Neither comment definitively identifies the cancelled project as a new Age of Empires game. However, the circumstances make that interpretation plausible. The franchise has been owned by Microsoft since 1997, and World’s Edge was established specifically to manage the series across several development teams rather than operate as a conventional single-game studio.
World’s Edge and the Age of Empires franchise
World’s Edge executive producer Earnest Yuen previously described the group’s role as similar to Marvel Studios: an organisation overseeing a major intellectual property while coordinating the teams that make individual games.
Over roughly six years, World’s Edge supervised remastered or updated versions of Age of Empires II, Age of Empires III and Age of Empires IV, along with Age of Mythology: Retold and the Age of Empires mobile game. As many as eight studios could contribute to a project, making World’s Edge’s coordination role particularly significant.
Isgreen brought extensive real-time strategy experience to that work. Since 1993, his credits have included major series such as Command & Conquer and Star Wars: Empire at War.
Was Age of Empires V in development?
Fans have long hoped that the recent remasters and franchise expansion would eventually lead to Age of Empires V—a completely new instalment rather than another restoration of an existing game.
That possibility was raised with Yuen in 2024. When asked whether World’s Edge was moving towards a new project, he hesitated before indicating that the team had many people interested in building more Age of Empires content. He then redirected the discussion towards the upcoming release of Age of Mythology: Retold.
That exchange does not confirm that Age of Empires V was actively being made. It does, however, provide context for why the latest layoffs have prompted speculation about a cancelled new entry.
What happens next?
Microsoft has not publicly confirmed the identity of the cancelled project. The available reports also do not establish whether development had begun, how far it had progressed or whether its ideas could be revived by the remaining World’s Edge staff.
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