Amidst recent massive layoffs, Microsoft announces The Initiative’s Perfect Dark reboot cancelled. Additionally, a senior producer working on Zenimax MMO Blackbird says, “I am starting to poke around for new remote work.”
As Microsoft announced on Wednesday, July 2, the company plans to lay off about 9,000 employees. It turns out that the massive job cuts will result in the cancellation of many promising video game projects, including Rare’s upcoming Everwild. Unfortunately, that’s not the end of the bad news regarding the situation.
Perfect Dark Reboot and Zenimax’s Unannounced MMO Cancelled
The Initiative Project Shutdown
The wait for the release of the Perfect Dark reboot is over, as the game has been cancelled after a recent wave of layoffs at Xbox. To make matters worse, Xbox and Microsoft ended their partnership with Crystal Dynamics, a co-development partner with The Initiative on the Perfect Dark project. In addition to this breaking news, the game’s first-party developer, The Initiative, is being officially shut down.
As Xbox Games Studio head Matt Booty shared in an internal email;
“We have made the decision to stop development of Perfect Dark and Everwild as well as wind down several unannounced projects across our portfolio. As part of this, we are closing one of our studios, The Initiative.”
As we can see at the end of that memo;
“For those directly affected, we are working closely with HR and studio leadership to provide support, including severance, career transition assistance, and where possible, opportunities to explore roles on other teams.”
Elder Scrolls Online Successor Cancellation Confirmed
It’s not the end of bad news, as a new MMO that was in the works at Elder Scrolls Online developer Zenimax Online Studios has also been cancelled. Codenamed Blackbird, the game was supposed to be a completely fresh idea and a successor to the wildly popular ESO.
As Chris Linn, a senior producer at Zenimax Online Studios, confirms on his LinkedIn;
“Hi everyone! Our amazing MMO project was just cancelled, I am starting to poke around for new remote work.”
Sean Dunn, the game’s executive producer, also shares his thoughts on the platform.
“Today was one of the biggest disappointments of my 35-year-long career in games”
He wrote, and added,
“My disappointment isn’t primarily for myself, but for my team, and for players that will never get to play the amazing game we were building.”
While none of the above projects had a specific release window, fans of each title have been looking forward to experiencing them themselves. Sadly, the reductions have only just begun and will affect approximately 4% of the company’s workforce.
As Phil Spencer, Microsoft’s head of gaming, stated in a message sent to all staff, layoffs are bound to happen to
“end or decrease work in certain areas of the business and follow Microsoft’s lead in removing layers of management to increase agility and effectiveness.”