During
yesterday’s
bloodbath,
it
was
revealed
that
multiple
people
at
Zenimax
Online
Studios
had
been
laid
off,
and
that

the
company’s
unannounced
game,
codenamed
Blackbird
internally,
had
been
cancelled.
Now,
we
know
Blackbird
was
a
sci-fi
looter
shooter,
and
just
a
few
months
ago
had
 “blown
away”
both
Phil
Spencer
and
Matt
Booty.

That’s
according
to
gaming’s
trusted
journalist
Jason
Schreier
of
Bloomberg.

In
his
latest
newsletter,
Schreier
revealed
that
last
night
he
was
shown
the
same
vertical
slice
of
Blackbird
which
Phil
Spencer
and
Matt
Booty
went
hands-on
with
in
March
of
this
year.

Apparently,
the
meeting
with
the
two
Xbox
bigwigs
and
Blackbird’s
team
went
extremely
well.
In
fact,
Phil
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,
according
to
two
people
who
were
in
the
room.”

Schreier
writes
that
the
slice
of
game
he
got
to
see
revealed
a
sci-fi
noir
shooter,
“similar
to
films
like Blade
Runner”
in
terms
of
graphics.
It
was
to
be
an
online
looter-shooter
with
plenty
of
verticality
thanks
to
grappling
hooks,
wall
climbing,
double-jumps
and
air-dashing.
” It
was
a
slick-looking
demo
with
alluring
visuals
and
battle
sequences,”
said
Schreier.

Schreier
notes
that
the
game’s
development
kicked
off
back
in
2018
but
did
end
up
on
the
back
burner
due
to
the
continued
success
of
The
Elder
Scrolls
Online.
However,
in
recent
years,
development
got
back
on
track
and
expanded
to
300
people.
Schreier
says
the
aim
was
a
2028
release.

After
the
meeting
in
March
in
which
” Executives
had
nothing
but
complimentary
words
for
the
project,”
the
team
put
together
a
plan
to
” flesh
out
the
vertical
slice
and
then
build
out
more
content
for
release.”

Then,
a
mere
4
months
later,
the
entire
game
is
scrapped
and
team
was
left
facing
uncertainty
because
apparently
Microsoft
couldn’t
even
get
firing
people
right.
Schreier
says
the
team
came
into
work
to
discover
disabled
Slack
accounts
and
“project
update”
meeting
scheduled
in
which
Blackbird’s
death
was
announced.

Schreier
claims
that
“The
next
few
hours
were
marked
by
chaos
and
confusion
as
employees
found
themselves
in
a
kind
of
limbo
status,
waiting
to
see
what
was
going
on.”

There
were
no
Emails,
no
messages,
nothing
to
indicate
team
members
had
actually
been
laid
off.
It
took
another
day
to
find
out
what
was
going
on.
It
turns
out
that
due
to
the
unionization
late
last
year
a
full
contract
hadn’t
been
completed,
so
Microsoft
was
having
to
negotiate
with
the
union,
resulting
in
“job
purgatory.”

So
there
we
have
it.
Not
quite
the
full
story,
but
at
least
a
chunk
of
it.
Blackbird
was
shaping
up
nicely
it
seems.
It
echoes
what
happened
with
Everwild,
another
game
that
was
a
victim
of
Microsoft’s
rampage,
except
in
the
case
of
Everwild,
Phil
Spencer
publicly
spoke
about
it
just
a
few
weeks
ago,
describing
how
good
it
was
and
how
happy
he
and
Matt
Booty
were
that
they
could
give
the
developers
the
time
they
needed
to
finish
it.

To
me,
this
is
a
reminder
that
the
order
to
cull
Xbox
came
from
much
higher
than
Phil,
because
if
we
take
his
words
and
Schreier’s
report
at
face
value,
he
killed
two
games
he
was
personally
hyped
about.
Of
course,
this
is
not
an
excuse,
nor
forgiveness
for
Phil
and
his
cohorts.
The
buck
has
to
stop
with
management,
after
all
–
they
bear
the
responsibility
of
leading
Xbox
to
this
position.