Last year, Microsoft went through a round of massive layoffs, and its gaming division wasn't immune. The most shocking thing is that the gaming giant directly axed Zenimax's MMORPG project that had been developed for 7 years. This game, codenamed "Project Blackbird," is costly for Microsoft. According to its game director Ben Jones' LinkedIn profile, the project has a budget of up to $400 million.
Although Microsoft has invested billions of dollars in Xbox, the division has never been able to achieve significant profits and has even become a drag. This will only happen again and again if companies continue to pour huge sums of money into projects that will never see the light of day.
Ben Jones serves as the game director of the "Blackbird" project at ZeniMax Online Studio. His LinkedIn profile writes: "I am an experienced leader and creative core, and my experience in projects ranges from small modules to $400 million masterpieces."
During his 25-year career, Jones has been involved in many projects, but none have approached the scale of Blackbird. After cross-reference, it can be confirmed that this is the "$400 million masterpiece" mentioned in his resume.
It should be noted that this is likely to be the final budget total before the game is completed and may not equal actual expenditures. But in any case, the 7-year development cycle is by no means cheap for Microsoft.
The game was close to being playable before being cancelled. Early reports stated that its gameplay was inspired by "Blade Runner", "Horizon" and "Destiny", and set a sci-fi noir theme similar to "Cyberpunk 2077". As for the reason why the project was canceled, people familiar with the matter revealed that it was to divert resources to the already approved "Fallout 5".
