ESO dev's scrapped MMO was reportedly a sci-fi shooter with Blade Runner vibes

The big story of this week has been Microsoft's huge round of layoffs, which have impacted several teams and projects under the Xbox Game Studios banner. That includes Zenimax Online Studios, the developer behind the hugely successful The Elder Scrolls Online, which has seen an upcoming MMO scrapped. New details have now emerged about the project, codenamed Blackbird, which was reportedly a sci-fi noir third-person shooter with dynamic movement mechanics - and just a matter of months ago, a vertical slice allegedly wowed Microsoft's gaming chief Phil Spencer.

So far on the confirmed casualty list from these Xbox layoffs, we have Rare's Everwild, the reboot of Perfect Dark, the unannounced game from Doom creator John Romero, and the ambitious-sounding Project Blackbird. When I covered the news of its cancellation (and the subsequent job losses at Zenimax Online Studios), little was known about the game officially. All that was confirmed was that it had been worked on for over seven years alongside supporting ESO, it was a new IP, and it was built on a brand-new engine.

Speculation based on job ads and rumors also suggested that it was an MMO with a sci-fi setting. Now, a new report from Bloomberg's Jason Schreier confirms that speculation, and reveals some other details about the game and its development. To me, it sounds like it could've one day earned a place on our best multiplayer games list.

"Blackbird was a third-person, online looter-shooter, not unlike the popular game Destiny, set within a new franchise," Schreier says, based on the information he's learned from ZOS employees. "It had a sci-fi, noir aesthetic - similar to films like Blade Runner - and placed a heavy emphasis on vertical movement. Players could use abilities such as double jumping, air-dashing, a grappling hook and wall climbing to fling themselves around tall buildings like superheroes."

Schreier says that while Project Blackbird's development stuttered a bit initially - due to both tech issues and The Elder Scrolls Online's success sapping most of ZOS' resources - in recent years the game progressed rather swiftly, and it was eyeing up a potential 2028 release date. ZOS apparently treated Microsoft executives to an "impressive vertical slice in March" of this year.

That vertical slice apparently made a huge impression. "Executives had nothing but complimentary words for the project," the report claims. According to Schreier's sources, Microsoft's gaming head Phil Spencer was so wowed by Blackbird that Matt Booty, the head of Xbox Game Studios, had to take his controller away from him so that a meeting about the game could continue as planned.

Due to the reception the game got, and the fact that development was now going pretty speedily and smoothly, Zenimax Online Studios employees were apparently stunned to learn that Project Blackbird had been canceled. I've got to admit, after hearing about the exciting premise of the game (and the fact a whole new engine had been built for it) I'm pretty surprised as well.

Knowing that it was planned to be a looter shooter MMO does of course bring with it some natural concerns, and clearly Microsoft shares them strongly enough to call it quits. Destiny 2 is in a bit of a decline, and other recent newcomers like The First Descendant have enjoyed only moderate success, so it would take something truly special to break into that space and establish itself as a genre leader - Microsoft wouldn't expect anything less of a project of that scope. With Schreier reporting that Blackbird's development team grew to around 300 people, the saddest thing about its cancellation is of course the amount of people whose jobs are already lost or at risk.