The impact ofXbox’s latest round of layoffswas huge, seeing thousands of employees lose their jobs, and multiple games were cancelled. One of these cancelled games was anunannounced MMO from Zenimax Online, codenamed Blackbird.
Xbox insider Jez Corden has suggested that this was cancelled so that Xbox canfocus its efforts on more Fallout games, and today, he claims to have more evidence that this is the case. Speaking on theXbox Two podcast, Corden says that he got wind of an all-hands meeting at Zenimax Online, in which employees were told that the new MMO was cancelled so the studio could make “strategic bets in other areas”.
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“I mentioned on the podcast last week that I’d heard that Zenimax Online Studios' Blackbird game was traded out for investment in the Fallout franchise. One of those games being Fallout 5,” says Corden.
“Last week, there was an all-hands meeting internally in Microsoft,” he continues. “One of the questions the staff has asked was why was Blackbird cancelled. And from what I was told, they said that one of the reasons they cancelled Blackbird was to make strategic bets in other areas and that they’re going to be hiring hundreds of people over the next few months to fill out some of these new bets.
“Now, in that meeting, Fallout 5 wasn’t specifically mentioned, but considering it was literally days after I’d heard that that meeting happened internally at Microsoft […] that kind of added credence to the rumour that I’d heard that it was revolving around Fallout.”
So, as Corden admits himself, the devs have not been told exactly what games will be made with the cash saved from Blackbird. However, given the timing of this and when he heard talk about the different Fallout games being in the works, he believes that the two decisions are related.
This would make a lot of sense, too. The Fallout show has been a huge success, and one that reignited interest in the games. However, Bethesda is notorious for taking things one game at a time, andthe next game will be The Elder Scrolls 6, which is years away. If Microsoft were to wait for Bethesda to give us Fallout 5, there’s a good chance that the show would have wrapped up with several seasons under its belt by the time it launches.
