What you need to know
- Reportedly, Microsoft has made the decision to cancel Blizzard's survival game that was announced in 2022. It would have been the studio's first new IP since 2016's Overwatch.
- Microsoft's president of Game Content and Studios Matt Booty announced the news in an internal letter to staff, saying that the company is "shifting some of the people working on" the survival game to future Blizzard projects.
- The cancellation comes amid 1,900 job cuts Microsoft is making across its gaming division, with people at Activision Blizzard, ZeniMax Media, and Xbox Game Studios affected.
- At the same time, Blizzard president Mike Ybarra and co-founder Allen Adham are leaving the company. Microsoft is expected to name a new president next week.
- These layoffs are the latest in what has been an unbelievably devastating year for the gaming industry. In 2023, roughly 10,000 developers were cut from developers and publishers, and these new Microsoft cuts increase 2024's total to nearly 5,900. We're still in January.
- Update: One of the visual effects artists that worked on Blizzard's survival game has said that "the entire Survival Team just got laid off," which seemingly contradicts Microsoft's stated plan to transfer some of its developers to other projects.
- Update: A new report has revealed that technical issues with the game's engine led to development struggles, and were ultimately why the decision was made to cancel it.
