Toys For Bob has officially partnered with Microsoft for their next title.
It’s an intriguing and interesting next step for the studio, but one that we can only take as a positive.
This cycle started last month, when word spread around that the studio had laid off some workers, and were losing their offices. The layoffs were true, as they were part of layoffs Activision had planned from even before Microsoft acquired them.
However, as it turned out, the office closing was a positive development. Toys For Bob had decided to become a completely remote company, and to punctuate that decision, they shut down what had been until that time their main offices.
Perhaps we should have seen that as a hint of the studio’s looming independence, as it turned out that Toys for Bob was leaving Activision, and Microsoft, to stand as their own company again. That ends 19 years of working under Activision, but as it turns out, they aren’t done working with Microsoft.
As reported by Windows Central, Xbox Game Content head Matt Booty was the person who revealed that they have reached an agreement with Toys for Bob for their next upcoming project as an independent studio. Matt did not reveal any details about the game itself, but did say that “it will be similar to games Toys for Bob has made in the past.”
This new deal is intriguing as it doesn’t seem like Toys For Bob was reticent about working with Microsoft after all. Instead, they didn’t want to stay in the situation where they were under Activision and Microsoft, and given how things recently turned out, who can blame them?
So just a few weeks earlier, Activision goes through with firing Toys for Bob’s employees. The studio was likely already thinking then that they didn’t want to have to fire people when they aren’t the ones making the call. In this case, the layoffs seem to be because Activision was trying to make their numbers better, and not about any issues with the employees themselves.
So in this setup, Toys for Bob can keep making games for Xbox, and likely, with Activision properties, but they won’t have to worry about their bosses having their studio’s livelihood over their heads.
As for what the next game could be, everyone very much expects a Spyro or Crash Bandicoot title to come up next. Toys-to-life may no longer really be a thing, but there’s a nonzero chance that that was what Toys for Bob pitched to Microsoft (making them a literal toy company).
But maybe Microsoft can surprise us too. After all, we have yet to get a Star Control IV. For those who don’t remember, Toys For Bob’s founders, Paul Reiche III and Fred Ford, personally own the Star Control copyrights, but they ran into legal trouble trying to make this game. Reiche and Ford may have played the long game with this, after all.
