Craig Duncan, head of Microsoft studio Uncommon, will become the unused head of Xbox Game Studios when Tide boss Alan Hartman retires.
Duncan has been studio head at Uncommon since 2011, overseeing games like Sea of Thieves and a pair of Kinect video games.
Hartman, meanwhile, was head of the final life of Xbox Game Studios after nearly 17 years as a studio head at the Forza Flip 10 developer and two more years as corporate vice president of Forza and Fantasy at Microsoft.
As head of Xbox Game Studios, Duncan will handle projects like Rare and Flip 10, as well as Place Games, Ninja Tenet, The Initiative, the newly named Halo Studios, and more.
Back on Raro, Duncan will be replaced by Joe Neate and Jim Horth. Neate has helmed Sea of Thieves as executive producer, the future Horth has worked on Uncommon for more than two decades, most of the last few years as studio head.
“Alan’s career has been marked by innovation, dedication, and an unwavering passion for gaming,” Matt Booty, president of Xbox game studios and content, wrote in an email to the team (thanks GI.Biz).
“Alan, who started as a contractor at Microsoft in the fledgling CD-ROM group in 1988, has worked on a variety of projects during his time here, from Age of Empires to Brute Force as studio director for Digital Anvil and the founding of Turn 10. Over the years, Alan, Turn 10 and Playground Games delivered 13 Forza Motorsport and Forza Horizon games, making Forza one of the biggest racing franchises in the world and regularly pushing the capabilities of our hardware. The games have set a benchmark for the industry and under his leadership, Xbox Game Studios has released multiple critically acclaimed titles this year and set the stage for highly anticipated games like Avowed, South of Midnight, Fable and more.” .
Instead of Duncan, he wrote: “In his new role, Craig will continue to focus on helping our studios deliver high-quality, differentiated gaming experiences that can become successful franchises and reach more players by investing in new IP.”
Uncommon has been working on its then-project, Everwild, for quite some time, which was scheduled for a shutdown in 2024 and then 2021. That now seems unlikely.
Meanwhile, Sea of Thieves was excluded on PS5 in the past and temporarily blocked 1 million copies sold.
