Elder Scrolls Online studio’s next MMO has been reportedly killed by Microsoft layoffs
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Massive Microsoft layoffs are occurring as we speak with 9,000 employees affected by the mega-corporations decisions. Despite Xbox boss Phil Spencer stating that Xbox is doing better than ever, projects are being axed, including the next MMO from the developers behind The Elder Scrolls Online.
Following news that Rare’s long in-development exclusive game Everwild had been scrapped, trusted reporter Jason Schreier reported that the next game from Zenimax Online Studios has been killed as a result of the mass layoffs.
Speaking to fans on Blue Sky, Schreier revealed that the once-upcoming MMORPG, which had been in development since 2018, has been canned. Dubbed Project Blackbird, the MMO was in development long before Microsoft’s acquisition of Zenimax back in 2021.
“The new MMORPG project from Zenimax Online Studios, maker of Elder Scrolls Online, has been canceled as part of the Xbox layoffs,” the reporter told followers.
At the time of writing, other first-party Xbox projects are also reportedly on the chopping block with some suggesting that the upcoming Perfect Dark game is in hot water. Shown off last year, Perfect Dark is the debut project from new studio The Initiative in collaboration with Crystal Dynamics. The game’s cancellation would be one of the most expensive scrapped games in history.
Zenimax Online Studios has done extraordinarily well with The Elder Scrolls Online over the past decade. Since the game’s launch in 2014, the Elder Scrolls prequel has become one of the biggest MMOs around, although it’s not as big as World of Warcraft or Final Fantasy XIV.
With frequent expansions and content drops, a lot of work and love has been funnelled into ESO, and many fans were excited to find out just what Project Blackbird actually was. Unfortunately, it seems that we’ll never get to actually play what the talented MMORPG developers were working on.
