Report: Xbox Executives Were Blown Away By Project Blackbird Before Cancelling It - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 03 July 2025 / 2,851 Views
Microsoft this week announced it would be laying off around four percent or as many as 9,100 employees. This included layoffs at the Xbox division and the cancellation of at least three games - Perfect Dark, Everwild, and the ZeniMax Online Studios MMORPG with the codename Blackbird that had been in development since 2018.
A new report from Bloomberg has shed some light on the MMORPG and revealed that back in March a vertical slice of Blackbird had been shared with executives, including Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer, and they were blown away by what they had played.
Two people who were in the room during the meeting claims "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."
Xbox executives only had complimentary words for the project when they played it in March. The team after the meeting worked on a production plan that would flesh out what was in the vertical slice and to work on more content for release.
Bloomberg's Jason Schreier saw footage from the vertical slice and says he was "impressed" and that it was a "slick-looking demo with alluring visuals and battle sequences."
Blackbird was a third-person online looter-shooter with a science-fiction and noir aesthetic. It had an emphasis on vertical movement and players could double jump, air dash, use a grappling hook, and wall climb.
Development on the game had some early challenges and was reportedly put on the backburner due to the ongoing success of The Elder Scrolls Online. The game was back on track in recent years as the team expanded to 300 people with the aim to release it is 2028 following the positive feedback from the vertical slice.
ZeniMax Online Studios President Matt Firor following the layoffs announced he would be leaving the company later this month and Jo Burba will be taking over as the new Studio Head.
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can follow the author on Bluesky.
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If their reactions were truly genuine and the game had that much promise, then it's time for them to take a hard look at their contributions to the gaming industry.
Cancelling bad games is fine, but if you're killing great games instead of finding a way to bring them players, especially with all the resources Microsoft has, then why are you in a leadership role?
This isn't the first time they've done this.
Microsoft and all that fcken acquisition is absolutely useless
It's definitely a head-scratcher.
No one believed me when I said the acquisition would be worse off for Xbox gamers. But I guess that's the trade off for wanting a subscription service.
Microsoft are basically horders and rent seekers.
All Xbox knows how to do is spend money
All Microsoft knows how to do is cost cutting
Not a good combo
Fire Satya, Fire Phil, Fire Everyone around them
Honestly, I don't think Phil had a choice with this, feels like the decision came from "higher up".
Microsoft is chasing that 6 trillion dollar market cap... That and Team Xbox have honestly struggled this generation, something had to give eventually.
Absolutely devastated with all the cancellations with games I was looking forwards to playing like Perfect Dark, Everwild and Blackbird.
Of all the developers Microsoft has, you would think Zenimax would be immune, considering they just came off the success of Oblivion Remastered and Skyrim still printing money.
Phil seems like a passionate gamer or have some appreciation for games. But I'm not sure about Mr Nadella .
MS gamings black hole!!!
MS has no heart or soul! They don’t care one bit about the devs or the gamers. They suck everything in, grind it up, and release less and less content. They should do us all a favor and sell off all their studios and get out of gaming!
Just like they were blown away with the first reveal of Halo Infinite? Let’s face it MS executives don’t know what the hell they’re doing!
This is the most Xbox headline ever.
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