Earlier this week, the studio’s parent company, Microsoft, announced swathes of major layoffs across its developers in order to “position Gaming for enduring success” - with Turn 10 said to have been hit particularly hard by the redundancies.

Now, former Turn 10 staffer Fred Russell has said the Forza Motorsport series has been shelved, with the studio now supposedly set to act as a support studio for the Forza Horizon franchise.

Russell - who left Turn 10 in 2016 - wrote on social media: “Turn 10 Studios has shuttered the Forza Motorsport space and the team is no more. A very sad day for one of the best car racing video games. I loved my time there.”

He added in a separate post: “The studio is open to support the Horizon side … shuttered the Forza Motorsport side only.”

Turn 10 has helmed the Forza Motorsport series since its debut in 2005, and the studio is understood to have lost roughly 50 per cent of its workforce in Microsoft’s latest round of layoffs.

It has been reported that Microsoft has so far let go of approximately 9,000 employees.

As well as Turn 10, other studios affected by the layoffs include Call of Duty’s Raven Software, The Initiative and Rare.

Due to the redundancies, The Initiative’s Perfect Dark reboot has been canned, and Rare’s fantasy title Everwild has also been shelved.

Blizzard’s mobile and PC game Warcraft Rumble also won’t be receiving any new content as its developers have been laid off.

In total, Microsoft has let go of over 11,500 employees in the last 18 months.