Forza Horizon 6 | The development teams behind Forza Horizon and Forza Motorsport were merged, resulting in the dissolution of Turn 10 Studios

The Forza racing game franchise was overseen by two development teams for a long time: Turn 10 Studios and Playground Games. Following the merger, there is now only one joint team, which will focus on further developing the Forza and Fable titles.

The former US-based team is considered the origin of the franchise. It produced Forza Motorsport in 2005, as well as seven other titles in the series.

The British team, on the other hand, is best known for developing Forza Horizon, the open-world spin-off of the franchise. In recent years, it managed to overtake Motorsport and became the leading Forza spin-off.

However, the development structure was not limited exclusively to Turn 10 being responsible for Motorsport and Playground for Horizon. Since the US-based team had developed the original Forza series, it held a hierarchically superior position over Playground despite Horizon's success.

This position changed over the past few years. A year ago, significant job cuts took place within the Microsoft-owned division after the Forza Motorsport reboot released in 2023 failed to receive a particularly positive response. In December 2025, it was also confirmed that no further content or features would be released for the title.

Following the merger, Turn 10's responsibilities now appear to have been further reduced.

Playground currently has two teams: One is working on Horizon, while the other is focused on the long-delayed Fable, which is scheduled for release in February 2027.

The official statement reads: “Playground and Turn 10 are being merged into a single studio focused on the Forza and Fable franchises.”

It continues: “These two studios have been creative partners for over a decade, working together on the franchises. With today's changes, their work is now officially being brought together in one team.”

The newly restructured team does not appear to be receiving a new name of its own and is expected to continue operating under the name “Playground.” If this is confirmed, it would effectively mark the end of Turn 10 after more than 21 years.

Forza Horizon 6 was released at the beginning of this year and was met with an overwhelmingly positive critical reception. However, some of the content provided after launch received controversial reviews. At least two expansions are expected over the game's life cycle.

In a post titled “Continuing Our Reset,” Matt Booty, Chief Content Officer at Xbox, also confirmed that the development studio Ninja Theory, known for Senua's Saga: Hellblade, is to be closed. Halo Studios will lose 268 jobs, while Activision will take control of the game franchise in the future.