Blizzard Leisure’s survival recreation, which was codenamed Odyssey, has been canceled following a lot of layoffs at Microsoft. Whereas the Xbox and Zenimax groups have been impacted by the layoffs, nearly all of the 1,900 roles misplaced fall throughout the Activision Blizzard groups.
Odyssey spent six years in improvement
Odyssey was to be a survival journey recreation set in a brand-new universe. The sport was revealed by way of a job itemizing in 2022 however had been in improvement for over six years. Due to points with the sport’s Synapse engine, the sport was nonetheless a number of years away from completion and was focusing on a 2026 launch date.
In the end, Blizzard determined that Odyssey wasn’t value pursuing and Blizzard spokesman Andrew Reynolds advised Bloomberg that the sport was canceled “as a part of a concentrate on initiatives that maintain essentially the most promise for future development.” Blizzard will “transfer among the individuals on the staff to one in every of a number of thrilling new initiatives Blizzard has within the early levels of improvement.”
Nearly all of the individuals engaged on Odyssey have been made redundant in the present day. Windows Central’s Jez Corden additionally reported the layoffs additionally embrace the overwhelming majority of Activision’s inner buyer help groups, which is able to now be outsourced to exterior corporations. In the meantime, Microsoft’s departments devoted to bringing Xbox video games to bodily retail have reportedly been shut down too, fuelling rumors of the digital-only Xbox console that’s supposedly in improvement.
Microsoft beforehand had a staff of twenty-two,000 workers between its many studios. In accordance with a memo from Phil Spencer, seen by IGN, the layoffs have been made throughout Activision Blizzard, ZeniMax, and the Xbox groups and signify roughly 8% of the workforce. Because of the choice, Blizzard Leisure President Mike Ybarra introduced that he was additionally leaving the company, as is Blizzard’s chief design officer and co-founder Allen Adham.
