Banjo-Kazooie director Gregg Mayles confirms he is left Uncommon

Gregg Mayles, the director of Sea of Thieves and designer on Donkey Kong Nation, has introduced that he is left Uncommon. Information of Mayles’ exit in July 2025 throughout a throughout Xbox Video games Studios, however the quick poem he immediately makes it official.

With a 36-year tenure on the studio, Mayles noticed its transition from an unique Nintendo accomplice to a Microsoft subsidiary. He helped design video games like Battletoads, created Banjo-Kazooie and when studio founders Tim and Chris Stamper left in 2007, stepped up and have become Uncommon’s artistic director. Mayles additionally led the crew behind Sea of Thieves, certainly one of Uncommon’s trendy successes.

The studio has been supporting Sea of Thieves with new content material because it was launched in 2018, however was additionally engaged on a brand new venture, Everwild, that was . The sport went by way of a troubled improvement course of over the previous couple of years, and Uncommon with Mayles taking on as director. Microsoft’s resolution to cancel the sport and layoff employees on the studio this summer season is probably going one of many causes he left.

Shedding Mayles is only one instance of Microsoft’s self-inflicted wounds from 2025. The corporate not solely made cuts at and Forza Motorsport developer , it additionally elevated the costs of each Xbox consoles and Game Pass Ultimate. All of those adjustments are seemingly in service of shifting the Xbox enterprise into one thing that is extra centered on subscriptions and sport publishing, however the transition positively looks as if a painful one.