Blizzard Survival Recreation Odyssey Canceled Amidst Microsoft Layoffs

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, the vast majority of the 1,900 roles misplaced fall inside the Activision Blizzard groups.

Odyssey spent six years in growth

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 growth for over six years. Because of points with the sport’s Synapse engine, the sport was nonetheless a number of years away from completion and was concentrating on a 2026 launch date.

Finally, Blizzard determined that Odyssey wasn’t price pursuing and Blizzard spokesman Andrew Reynolds informed Bloomberg that the sport was canceled “as a part of a deal with initiatives that maintain essentially the most promise for future development.” Blizzard will “transfer a number of the folks on the crew to one in every of a number of thrilling new initiatives Blizzard has within the early levels of growth.”

Nearly all of the folks engaged on Odyssey have been made redundant right this moment. Home windows Central’s Jez Corden additionally reported the layoffs additionally embody the overwhelming majority of Activision’s inside buyer assist groups, which is able to now be outsourced to exterior firms. 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 growth.

Microsoft beforehand had a crew of twenty-two,000 workers between its many studios. In keeping with a memo from Phil Spencer, seen by IGN, the layoffs have been made throughout Activision Blizzard, ZeniMax, and the Xbox groups and characterize roughly 8% of the workforce. On account of the choice, Blizzard Leisure President Mike Ybarra introduced that he was additionally leaving the corporate, as is Blizzard’s chief design officer and co-founder Allen Adham.