by
William D’Angelo
, posted 4 hours ago / 570 Views
Microsoft this week announced it would be laying off around four percent or as many as 9,100 employees. This included layoffs at the Xbox division and the cancellation of at least three games – Perfect Dark, Everwild, and the ZeniMax Online Studios MMORPG with the codename Blackbird that had been in development since 2018.
A new report from Bloomberg has shed some light on the MMORPG and revealed that back in March a vertical slice of Blackbird had been shared with executives, including Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer, and they were blown away by what they had played.
Two people who were in the room during the meeting claims “Spencer was enjoying the game so much that Matt Booty, the head of Xbox Game Studios, had to pull the controller away so they could keep the meeting going.”
Xbox executives only had complimentary words for the project when they played it in March. The team after the meeting worked on a production plan that would flesh out what was in the vertical slice and to work on more content for release.
Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier saw footage from the vertical slice and says he was “impressed” and that it was a “slick-looking demo with alluring visuals and battle sequences.”
Blackbird was a third-person online looter-shooter with a science-fiction and noir aesthetic. It had an emphasis on vertical movement and players could double jump, air dash, use a grappling hook, and wall climb.
Development on the game had some early challenges and was reportedly put on the backburner due to the ongoing success of The Elder Scrolls Online. The game was back on track in recent years as the team expanded to 300 people with the aim to release it is 2028 following the positive feedback from the vertical slice.
ZeniMax Online Studios President Matt Firor following the layoffs announced he would be leaving the company later this month and Jo Burba will be taking over as the new Studio Head.
A life-long and avid gamer, William D’Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can follow the author on Bluesky.
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