ESO dev's new MMORPG, in the works for over seven years, has been canceled

Microsoft is today laying off 9,000 employees, and a decent chunk of those workers are part of the Xbox side of the business. Developers under the Xbox Game Studios banner are being squeezed, and The Elder Scrolls Online creator Zenimax Online Studios is among them. Despite being busy supporting ESO for many years, the studio has been toiling away at another project, reportedly codenamed Blackbird. However, due to this new round of layoffs, Blackbird - thought to be another ambitious MMO - has been canceled.

The Elder Scrolls Online has held a spot on our best MMORPGs list for quite some time now. It may be over a decade old, but it still sees regular updates and new features arrive. This year is set to be a transformative year for the game, with some big changes to content delivery on the horizon. However, while ESO is going from strength to strength, it appears that Zenimax Online Studios' next project has reached the end of the line.

Through official job ads, we've known about this second game, reportedly called Project Blackbird, for quite a while now. In 2022, game director Ben Jones said that he'd been working on it for four and a half years, meaning development began in 2018 at the latest. We also know for sure that it's a brand-new IP that was also being built on a new game engine. Reading between the lines in the dozens of job ads Zenimax has posted for the game, sleuths have also speculated that it would be an MMO set in a sci-fi world.

As was first reported by Bloomberg's Jason Schreier, Project Blackbird has been canceled as a result of these sweeping Microsoft layoffs. A post from Jones on LinkedIn now confirms that the project is no more and that members of his team are leaving Zenimax.

"Setting aside my own grief after today's tragic news and the loss of the most exciting and ambitious project I've worked on to date; My job and primary purpose is now to find homes for the spectacularly talented friends and colleagues that were let go from ZeniMax Online Studios this morning," he writes.

Project Blackbird appears to not be the only Xbox Game Studios project getting shelved either. VGC's sources claim that Everwild, the upcoming game from Sea of Thieves developer Rare, has also been canceled.

It's disappointing to not only hear that so many more developers are losing their jobs this week, but that some exciting projects are never going to see the light of day. While the MMO space is certainly crowded and full of stalwart titles like ESO, I'm sure Blackbird would've made a big impact, given Zenimax's past work.

Away from just Xbox Game Studios, several other promising games have been canceled this year already, including Monolith's Wonder Woman (which coincided with the full shut down of the iconic studio) and the Riot Games-backed Minecraft rival Hytale.