Xbox is officially merging Turn 10 Studios and Playground Games into a single studio focused on the Forza and Fable franchises. Microsoft announced the restructuring on September 22, 2026, formally bringing together the historic developer of Forza Motorsport and the team behind Forza Horizon after more than a decade of collaboration. The announcement does not confirm the end of Forza Motorsport, but it represents a major change in how Microsoft’s racing franchises will be developed going forward.
Xbox Chief Content Officer Matt Booty announced the change as part of a wider restructuring of Microsoft’s gaming organization.
According to Microsoft, Playground Games and Turn 10 “will come together as one studio focused on the Forza and Fable franchises.” The company says the two studios have worked as creative and franchise partners for more than a decade, with the new structure formally moving their work into a single team.
For racing fans, that means the developers historically responsible for the two main branches of Forza will no longer operate as completely separate studios.
Turn 10 and Playground Games Become One Team
Turn 10 Studios created the original Forza Motorsport and has remained closely associated with Microsoft’s circuit-racing franchise since the first game launched in 2005.
Playground Games was founded later and launched the first Forza Horizon in 2012, eventually turning the open-world series into one of Xbox’s largest gaming franchises. The two studios have never been completely isolated from one another. Turn 10 has long been involved with the wider Forza technology and franchise ecosystem, while Playground built Horizon using technology and foundations developed across the Forza organization.
That collaboration has become particularly visible with Forza Horizon 6. Microsoft had already stated earlier this year that teams from both Playground Games and Turn 10 were working together on the latest Horizon title. Now that relationship is becoming permanent.
Microsoft says:
Playground and Turn 10 will come together as one studio focused on the Forza and Fable franchises. These two studios have been creative and franchise partners for over a decade, and today’s changes will formally move their work into one team.
Xbox has not yet announced what the combined studio will be called, how its leadership structure will work or whether the existing Turn 10 and Playground Games names will continue to be used publicly.
What Does This Mean for Forza Motorsport?
This is the biggest unanswered question following the announcement.
Microsoft has not announced the cancellation or retirement of the Forza Motorsport franchise.
The September 22 statement specifically says that the combined studio will focus on the Forza and Fable franchises, without distinguishing between Forza Horizon and Forza Motorsport.
It would therefore be premature to claim that Forza Motorsport is dead. However, the current Motorsport game had already entered a much quieter phase before this restructuring was announced. At the end of 2025, Turn 10 confirmed that its development priorities were shifting toward Forza Horizon 6. The studio said that it did not plan to introduce new cars, tracks, features or regular bug fixes to Forza Motorsport during 2026. That does not mean the game has been shut down.
Turn 10 has continued to:
- Keep Forza Motorsport’s online servers operating.
- Run competitions and special events.
- Return previously released Featured Tours.
- Make older reward cars permanently available.
- Maintain the existing multiplayer ecosystem.
The current Forza Motorsport therefore remains playable and supported as an online product, but active feature development had already been reduced considerably before Turn 10’s merger with Playground Games.
Microsoft has not announced a new Forza Motorsport game or explained whether a future circuit-racing title is currently in development.
Forza Horizon 6 Already Brought Both Studios Together
The merger is less surprising when viewed through the development of Forza Horizon 6. Playground Games remains the principal developer behind the open-world racing game, but Microsoft had already publicly described Playground and Turn 10 as working together on Forza Horizon 6.
Released in May 2026, Horizon 6 moved the Festival to Japan and introduced its largest urban environment yet alongside dedicated Time Attack circuits, Car Meets and a significantly expanded open-world structure. You can find a full overview in our Forza Horizon 6 guide.
Turn 10 was also still communicating directly through the official Forza website as recently as August, when it announced the latest franchise-wide sale covering Forza Horizon 6, Forza Horizon 5 and Forza Motorsport. Our coverage of that promotion can be found in Forza Horizon 6, Motorsport and Horizon 5 Get Major Discounts.
The September restructuring therefore formalizes a collaboration that had already become increasingly visible during 2026.
Fable Is Also Part of the New Studio’s Focus
The combined team will not exclusively develop racing games.
Playground Games has spent several years building a separate development team responsible for Fable, Microsoft’s revival of the action-RPG franchise. Xbox explicitly names both Forza and Fable as the franchises that the newly combined studio will focus on.
That makes the new organization unusual: the same studio structure will now contain expertise covering open-world driving games, circuit racing technology and a large-scale action RPG.
Microsoft has not explained whether teams will continue operating internally as separate development groups, although that would be possible within a larger unified studio.
The Merger Is Part of a Much Larger Xbox Restructuring
The Turn 10 and Playground Games merger is only one part of Microsoft’s latest Xbox reorganization.
Microsoft also announced the elimination of 268 roles across Halo Studios, other first-party developers and Xbox Game Studios management and central functions. However, Microsoft’s public statement does not specify how many, if any, of those 268 positions are located at Turn 10 or Playground Games.
Other parts of the restructuring include Activision expanding its responsibilities to Rare and World’s Edge, Bethesda taking responsibility for Obsidian and King expanding its remit to Microsoft Casual Games. Microsoft describes the overall objective as operating fewer business units while aligning teams that already work closely together.
For Forza, that means eliminating the organizational separation between its two historic development studios.
A New Structure for the Future of Forza
The immediate effect for players should not be interpreted as a new game announcement.
There is no new Forza Motorsport confirmed, no new Motorsport roadmap and no indication that Forza Horizon 6 is changing direction because of the merger. What has changed is the structure behind the franchise.
Turn 10 and Playground Games are now formally becoming one studio.
Forza Horizon 6 had already demonstrated how closely the two teams were working together, while active development on the current Forza Motorsport had been substantially reduced. The major question is what Microsoft does with that combined expertise next. Turn 10 brings more than two decades of circuit-racing development, vehicle physics and Forza technology. Playground Games brings the open-world design and enormous commercial success of Forza Horizon while simultaneously developing Fable.
Whether that eventually produces another dedicated Forza Motorsport remains unknown.
For now, the only confirmed conclusion is that the traditional separation between the studios behind Forza Motorsport and Forza Horizon is coming to an end, with Microsoft placing both teams inside a single organization responsible for the future of Forza and Fable.
See you on the track!
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