Microsoft’s recent layoffs at Activision-Blizzard have left many without a job, especially those who had been working on Blizzard’s unannounced and now canceled survival game. The news came as a shock to outgoing staff, who have been expressing their sadness over the project’s downfall in the days since.
News of Microsoft’s decision to lay off nearly 2,000 employees has rocked the gaming world and one element of the restructure has left a sour taste in the mouths of fired developers and players alike—the cancellation of Blizzard’s survival game. The unannounced project, codenamed “Odyssey,” was allegedly shelved due to technical reasons and the entire team working on it was scrapped. Former developers who worked on it have expressed their disappointment with the fact that the game will never see the light of day.
Conceptual artist Marby Kwong also spoke out on the matter, saying that he is most devastated by the team’s dissolution and that the “beautiful and fun game” the team was developing would never be released.
Former Riot Games software engineer Anna Rosenberg was brought onto the Acti-Blizzard team to work on Odyssey, which was supposed to be her first AAA project. “I’m devastated no one else will get to experience it,” Rosenberg said. It’s another story in what is fast becoming the reality for many in the space as the industry suffers through a reset of epic proportions.
Many other developers expressed their sorrow for the layoffs and the project’s abrupt cancellation, which Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier said happened due to technical reasons and the inability of Blizzard to set a definitive technical solution. Whatever the exact reasons may be, it’s a saddening story altogether, and layoffs unfortunately continue to plague the gaming world with nearly 6,000 developers already losing their jobs in the first month of 2024.
