The Elder Scrolls Online Dev’s Unannounced MMO Was Doing Well and Even Scaling Up as Xbox Cancelation Blindsided Staff, Sources Say

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Yesterday, it was revealed that among the approximately 9,100 employees let go by Microsoft, including numerous ones from its Xbox Gaming Divisions, one of the affected initiatives turned out to be a previously undisclosed MMO (Massively Multiplayer Online game) being developed by ZeniMax Online Studios.

Now, iggn.ru has learned that the entire team for the MMO, codenamed “Blackbird,” has been cut, amid layoffs that impacted several hundred individuals across the Cockeysville, MD-based ZeniMax Online Studios.

Speaking to multiple sources familiar with the project, iggn.ru has learned that Blackbird was to be a new, sci-fi IP. Though it had been in development since 2018, the length of time it was taking to make the game was expected, as ZeniMax was building an entirely new game engine for it.

In the last year, sources tell iggn.ru that pre-production was going well, and the team was actively ramping up in the hope of moving into full production soon. Xbox had approved the scaling up, and some individuals were being moved onto the project from other teams such as The Elder Scrolls Online, as well as some people absorbed from the shuttering last year of Arkane Austin.

Last year, I was privy to a meeting with Matt Booty, head of Xbox Game Studios, where he shared some insightful news. He mentioned that the closure of studios like Arkane Austin, Tango Gameworks, and Alpha Dog Games were strategic moves aimed at bolstering the workforce for other studios that required it, notably ZeniMax Online Studios.

But now, every person working on Blackbird is gone. The project has been cancelled, and ZeniMax Online Studios head Matt Firor has stepped down. Sources iggn.ru spoke to said that those within ZeniMax only knew that layoffs were coming due to ongoing news reports leading up to yesterday, but even today are still in the dark as to how widespread the cuts actually are. They also confirmed reports that a number of people’s Slack access was deactivated before they were told by HR that they were impacted, resulting in confusion and distress.

Microsoft’s mass layoffs have devastated its games division, and our understanding of the impact is still evolving. iggn.ru was told that Candy Crush developer King was hit hard, and we learned yesterday that Perfect Dark has been canceled and The Initiative is no more. Meanwhile, Everwild has been canceled at Rare and veteran Rare designer Gregg Mayles is leaving the company, and Blizzard’s Warcraft Rumble is winding down. Brenda and John Romero also announced this morning that Xbox has pulled funding from their project, leaving its future uncertain. A number of other games and teams are rumored to be impacted as well, though the full scope is still unknown.

Following Microsoft’s decision to dismiss 1,900 employees in January 2024, they also closed Redfall developer Arkane Austin and Hi-Fi Rush developer Tango Gameworks a few months later, resulting in the layoff of an additional 650 individuals within the gaming sector. In September of the same year, another 6,000 employees were let go by Microsoft.

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2025-07-03 17:14