Microsoft is firing 9,000 employees today, and these decent chunks of workers are part of the Xbox side of the business. The developers under the Xbox Game Studios banner are narrowed down. Elders wrap onlineE-creator Zenimax Online Studios is among them. Despite being busy supporting ESO for years, the studio is suffering from another project reportedly called Blackbird. However, due to this new round of layoffs, Blackbird is considered another ambitious MMO – has been cancelled.
Elder Scrolls Online has been holding spots on our best MMORPGS list for quite some time. It may be over a decade old, but it still has regular updates and new features arriving. This year is set to be a transformative year for the game, with major changes to content delivery on the horizon. However, while ESO is increasing its strength, it appears that Zenimax Online Studios’ next project has reached the end of the line.
Through official job ads, we know about this second game. It was reportedly called Project Blackbird. In 2022, game director Ben Jones said he’d been working on it for four and a half years. In other words, the latest development began in 2018. We also know for sure that new game engines are built on new IPs. Reading between the lines of dozens of jobs ads on Zenimax has been posted for the game. Sleuths speculates that it will be an MMO set in the science fiction world.
As first reported by Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier, Project Blackbird was cancelled as a result of these sweeping Microsoft layoffs. A post from Jones on LinkedIn confirms that there are no more projects and that members of his team are leaving Zenimax.
“After today’s tragic news and the loss of the most exciting and ambitious projects I have ever worked on, I would like to put aside my own grief. My job and main purpose is to find the home of epic talented friends and colleagues who have been let go from Zenimax Online Studios this morning,” he writes.
It appears that Project Blackbird is not the only Xbox Game Studios project. VGC sources claim that Sea of Thieves Developer Rare’s upcoming game, Everwild, has also been cancelled.
Not only is it a shame to hear that more developers are losing their jobs this week, but some exciting projects never see the light of day. The MMO space is certainly crowded and full of stubborn titles like ESO, but considering Zenimax’s past works, Blackbird should have had a huge impact.
Not only Xbox Game Studios, but several other promising games have already been cancelled, including the Monolith Wonder Woman (matched a full shutdown of the iconic studio) and the Minecraft rival Hytale, supported by riot games.
