Forza Director Who Spent 27 Years at Turn 10 Leaves Microsoft Following Studio Merger with Playground Game

Dan Greenawalt, director, founder and vice president at Turn 10 Game, has left the studio after 27 years with the company. The move comes as Turn 10 is being merged with Playground Game as part of Xbox’s wide-ranging restructuring that earlier this year made headlines with 3,200 layoffs and four studio closures.

The memo continues: “It’s hard to overstate Dan’s impact over the past 27 years. From shipping Project Gotham Racing on the original Xbox in 2001 to leading the creation of Forza, founding Turn 10 Studios and appearing so many times on our E3 stage, usually making a dramatic entrance with a supercar in tow – and so much more – we owe tremendous thanks and gratitude to Dan. On behalf of both teams, I would like to thank Dan for his leadership, his support, and his partnership. I wish him well for whatever comes next.”

With Xbox’s merger of Playground Game and Turn 10, the developers will collaborate on the Forza and Fable franchises. The last track racer Playground Game developed before this merger was 2023’s Forza Motorsport reboot, a superb racer that offered a compelling alternative to the more arcade-style Forza Horizon series. In Eurogamer’s review, the game was described as “A generous and lavish racer, with thrilling driving, that wants you for the long haul.”

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Forza Motorsport (2023)

Sony has acquired the movie rights for Mouthwashing, the hit independent horror game released in 2024.

Deadline reports Sony has obtained the rights from developer Wrong Organ and publisher Critical Reflex, and also brought on Karyn Kusama to direct the adaptation, a director perhaps best known for her work on the acclaimed Yellowjackets television series.

Sony has also enlisted Matt Manfredi and Phil Hay to write for the project, as well as production company Crooked Highway (known for the Ethan Hawke-led The Black Phone film series). No word yet on which actors will star in the adaptation, nor whether the story will follow the game’s own narrative.

Mouthwashing was a critically acclaimed release, selling more than 500,000 copies as of February 2025. That figure was for PC alone, with the game made available on consoles yesterday.

This adaptation would arguably follow the path paved by the Iron Lung movie, created by Mark Fischbach (better known by his online alias Markiplier) and his own production company Markiplier Studios. That, a film adaptation of an indie horror game, performed exceptionally well at the box office, bringing in $21m globally shortly after its premiere.

A Mouthwashing movie is an interesting idea. The main question is whether it would follow the plot and narrative structure of the game faithfully, or whether changes would be made to better suit the big screen. A sillier—but awfully tantalising—question is who you’d like to see cast in the movie. Who’d play Swansea… Who’d play Jimmy?!? Questions abound.

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