New Details From The Cancelled ZeniMax Online MMORPG Leak, Reveals Story And Gameplay Details

Microsoft laying off 9,000 people across the company this week, with a significant portion of them coming from its Xbox and gaming business, meant several projects being cancelled before they could see the light of day. One of the more significant cancellations was a game codenamed Project Blackbird, and MMORPG from The Elder Scrolls Online developer, ZeniMax Online.

More details about what this MMORPG would have become have been trickling out since news of the layoffs started to break earlier this week, like how recently, development on the project was progressing well despite some early issues with the game’s engine. Microsoft’s chief executive officer of its gaming division, Phil Spencer, reportedly loved what ZeniMax Online was creating, even going so far as to needing the controller ripped from his hands in order for a meeting to actually continue.

Clearly, though, not even Spencer’s admiration of the game could get in the way of Microsoft’s larger AI-driven goals, which are reportedly a key factor behind the cuts.

As far as what Project Blackbird would have become, we’ve already heard a few details from reports that described it as a third-person shooter that would have had a sci-fi setting, with a major focus on player movement as a key aspect of gameplay, with players having the ability to double-jump, dash, make use of a grapple hook, wall-climb. It was as key to the gameplay as shooting would have been, according to reports we’ve already heard. Now, a new report from True Achievements goes into even deeper detail as to what Blackbird was going to be, describing elements of its story, setting, and gameplay.

True Achievements corroborates what we’ve already heard, that ZeniMax Online was building a sci-fi setting and a third-person shooter/action game, and further elaborates on the setting, claiming that players would have stepped into the shoes of a type of character called a Revenant, “an operative working for alien syndicates on a remote, tidally locked planet called Soteria.”

Soteria was said to have been an ice planet on one side while the other was constantly sweltering under an oppressive sun, with an area in the middle called ‘The Twilight Band’ that was actually habitable. There was a sentient AI named PAN, a race of aliens who thought they were better than everyone else, various syndicates that players could side with, an aquatic race of aliens, a furry alien race, and a race of aliens that could purge the depths of your mind for secrets. All solid ingredients for the foundation of a sci-fi world.

Missions could involve up to four players, with some larger missions involving up to six players at a time, each dolled out by the various syndicates you could work for. Humans also fit into the story, with the various alien races understandably cautious about humans after a high-ranking alien officer was killed in a human neighborhood. That’s where much of Blackbird’s “alien noir themes” came from, as you dug into the mystery behind the murder and rose through the ranks of this sci-fi world.

All together, this MMORPG from ZeniMax Online sounds like it would have been something far more expansive than what it had built with The Elder Scrolls Online, which is one of the worlds largest and most successful MMORPGs. There’s never a guarantee that any game will be a hit, but everything we’ve heard about Project Blackbird so far suggests that it was going to be something incredible. Now, its cancellation remains a stain on the legacy of the current Microsoft leadership and their clear inability to manage talented developers and studios.