Juan Vaca, the story director of Gears of War: E-Day, has been laid off by Microsoft barely two weeks before the game’s release. Vaca had worked at developer The Coalition since 2022 and had contributed to the project for more than four years, highlighting the disruption caused by Xbox’s latest restructuring.

Vaca announced the job loss on LinkedIn shortly after the game went gold, meaning it was ready for release, with launch scheduled for 6 October. Fewer than a handful of Coalition developers were reportedly affected, while 268 Xbox staff were laid off overall; other changes included studio mergers, reporting-line changes, major cuts at Halo Studios and the planned closure of Ninja Theory.