There was a lot of carnage this week at Xbox after Microsoft laid off over 9000 employees across its many divisions. People lost their jobs and some of Xbox Game Studios’ upcoming projects have been canned. This included high-profile games like the Perfect Dark reboot and Rare’s new action-adventure game Everwild, but it also included a game we had never actually heard about until it was already gone. The Elder Scrolls Online team over at ZeniMax Online Studios was working on a new MMORPG codenamed “Blackbird,” and the first time most of the public was made aware of it was when it was canceled.
A new story from Bloomberg outlines the inhumane limbo several Microsoft employees have been dealing with during this layoff process, which left several people waiting for hours, if not a full day to find out the status of their jobs and projects. It also has a few details about Blackbird, and it sounds like Microsoft Gaming Chief Executive Officer Phil Spencer really enjoyed what he played of it earlier this year. According to Bloomberg’s sources, Spencer was so enamored with the game when he played it in March that Head of Xbox Game Studios Matt Booty had to physically take the controller from him so they could continue a meeting. All this praise from the powers that be made it a shock for the team when the game was abruptly canceled during Microsoft’s culling of its workforce.
While it’s unclear if the public will ever see this game in motion, Bloomberg describes it as a third-person looter-shooter akin to Destiny, but set within a new world with a “sci-fi, noir aesthetic” similar to that of Blade Runner. Bloomberg saw footage of the game and said it “placed a heavy emphasis on vertical movement,” with a lot of movement abilities like air-dashing, using a grappling hook, and wall-climbing to move across buildings.
Xbox’s internal studios have suffered during these cuts, but some of the company’s external partners have as well. Legendary Doom designer John Romero’s next project lost all its funding, forcing him to shut down his studio, Romero Games.
