Overview
- Matt Firor, in a new interview, said Microsoft canceled the long-planned MMO for cost reasons and confirmed he resigned because of the decision.
- Project Blackbird was a sci-fi, third-person online looter-shooter set on the tidally locked planet Soteria, with players as bio‑enhanced “Revenants” investigating a murder plot.
- ZeniMax built a bespoke engine to speed future content updates, which raised upfront spending and, Firor said, made the project look like a large bet on a balance sheet.
- Microsoft dropped the game in summer 2025 during broader Xbox cuts after the Activision acquisition, even as reports said Phil Spencer had praised early playtests.
- Developers lost work and faced uncertainty, the ZOS United-CWA union said, while the studio shifted focus back to The Elder Scrolls Online, which Firor still plays quietly.