Xbox has reportedly cancelled Rare’s Everwild and a new MMO from the team behind The Elder Scrolls Online. Xbox has a massive roster of studios and franchises, but they’ve run into some struggles in recent years that have massively impacted their potential. For starters, there are games that were announced all the way back in 2020 that are still at least a year or more away from finally releasing such as Perfect Dark and Fable. Then there are games that have quietly sat in silence for even longer than that such as Rare’s next game Everwild. The game was announced back in 2021, but has been in various stages of development for over a decade.
Unfortunately, after years of silence following its 2019 reveal and a 2021 trailer, Everwild has been reportedly cancelled. VGC reported the cancellation as part of massive layoffs sweeping Microsoft this week. Everwild was expected to be somewhat of a successor to Viva Pinata with survival game elements. It’s unclear if the project wasn’t meeting Microsoft’s standards or if the game was just a necessary cancellation in order to cut costs. Microsoft has shut down studios and killed projects in the past simply because they wouldn’t have a game ready very soon, so it’s possible this was the reason, but we can only speculate until Microsoft says something officially. Xbox had reassured fans the project was still in the works earlier this year.
In addition to that, Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier confirmed that a new unannounced MMO from Zenimax Online Studios, the team behind The Elder Scrolls Online. The project has been in the works since 2018 and was codenamed Blackbird. It’s unclear if this was an MMO based around any of Bethesda’s other franchises. Fallout already has one in the form of Fallout 76, so it’s unlikely it was that.
As of right now, it’s unclear what these teams next steps are. We’re not sure what their headcount is after these layoffs, so it’s hard to determine what scale these studios can achieve. Rare still actively supports Sea of Thieves, so more updates for that game are likely in the cards, but in terms of their next game? Who’s to say. Rare hasn’t released a brand new game since 2018, so it could be many years before we do see a new game from the studio. At this rate, it’s likely we go the rest of the Xbox Series X generation before it happens.
It’s unclear if any other Xbox games were scrapped during this layoff period. It’s possible that more unannounced games have also been cancelled, but there are no reports of such a thing at the moment. Xbox still boasts a strong future line up with Fable, Perfect Dark, a new Forza, a new Halo, Call of Duty, and Gears of War: E-Day. At the very least, it’s good to see both studios are still standing and hopefully, whatever they choose to do next is great.
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