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Blizzard Leisure’s survival sport, which was codenamed Odyssey, has been canceled following numerous 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 throughout the Activision Blizzard groups.
Odyssey spent six years in improvement
Odyssey was to be a survival journey sport set in a brand-new universe. The sport was revealed by a job itemizing in 2022 however had been in improvement for over six years. Due to points with the sport’s Synapse engine, the sport was nonetheless a number of years away from completion and was focusing on a 2026 launch date.
In the end, Blizzard determined that Odyssey wasn’t price pursuing and Blizzard spokesman Andrew Reynolds advised Bloomberg that the sport was canceled “as a part of a concentrate on tasks that maintain probably the most promise for future progress.” Blizzard will “transfer a number of the folks on the crew to considered one of a number of thrilling new tasks Blizzard has within the early phases of improvement.”
Nearly all of the folks engaged on Odyssey have been made redundant immediately. Home windows Central’s Jez Corden additionally reported the layoffs additionally embrace the overwhelming majority of Activision’s inside buyer assist groups, which can 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 improvement.
Microsoft beforehand had a crew of twenty-two,000 staff 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 symbolize roughly 8% of the workforce. Because 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.
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