After 'Crunching Hard' Through Their Final Months, Gears of War: E-Day Developers Are Reportedly Now Expecting Layoffs

Gear of War: E-Day developers are reportedly in no mood to celebrate the game's imminent release, following months of overtime and fresh fears of further layoffs.

That's according to a Eurogamer report that includes comments from various sources at The Coalition, Microsoft's dedicated Gears of War team that has been working on E-Day for the past five years.

Microsoft has made numerous rounds of redundancies over that time, though staff at The Coalition say they previously felt somewhat insulated from the job losses due to their work on such a high-profile project. But as their time building Gears of War: E-Day has wound down — a period that has also reportedly seen them "crunching hard" — there are now serious concerns that layoffs may soon be on the horizon for them, too.

"The mood is certainly 'let's not celebrate the game until we're three months post launch, just in case', which is very unusual," one source said.

"We're just expecting …