Avowed and The Outer Worlds 2 Missed Expectations as Xbox Sees a Split Reaction

---

Windows Central says Xbox is under growing profit pressure, with rumored large-scale layoffs tied directly to the underperformance of several big-budget first-party games. Citing a reliable Xbox insider, the report says titles including Avowed, The Outer Worlds 2, Forza, and Senua's Saga: Hellblade II were internally classified as having missed expectations. The bigger issue goes beyond raw sales: whether Xbox's recent first-party slate has come close to the company's internal targets.

That is what makes names like Avowed and The Outer Worlds 2 stand out most. Those titles stand out because they were among Xbox's biggest recent bets. According to the source, "Avowed, Keeper, Kiln, South of Midnight, Hellblade II, Forza, and The Outer Worlds 2 were all internally categorized as projects that did not meet expectations." The point is that this was not a one-off miss. Several expensive projects fell noticeably short of company targets at the same time.

The report frames this as more than a few individual disappointments. It argues Xbox has had a difficult run this generation, especially before current CEO Asha Sharma took over, with the platform strategy shifting multiple times. On top of that, the cancellations of Perfect Dark, Everwild, and the project codenamed Blackbird have only added to the pressure, further disrupting what should have been a more coherent release schedule.

Still, the past year was not without bright spots. Windows Central notes that Microsoft Flight Simulator, Forza Horizon, Grounded, and The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered were among Xbox's success stories over the past year. The problem is that those wins were largely offset by underperformance elsewhere. Those successes show Xbox can still deliver hits, but not enough to make up for the weaker results elsewhere.

For players, that is the part worth watching. If profit pressure and layoff rumors are now directly linked to weak results from expensive projects, Xbox is likely to become more cautious about how it allocates resources. In practical terms, that could mean fewer expensive projects of this kind, or at least much more pressure on them to prove they can deliver reliable returns.

Reaction is likely to remain split. Some will treat this as a painful transition period. Others will see it as a deeper problem with Xbox's output and strategic direction. My read is that Xbox does not simply need another long list of large-scale projects. It needs a few games that connect strongly enough with players to justify the scale of the investment. Big worlds are not the problem. Empty ones are.