{"id":76827,"date":"2026-04-28T13:38:00","date_gmt":"2026-04-28T17:38:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/?p=76827"},"modified":"2026-04-28T14:36:37","modified_gmt":"2026-04-28T18:36:37","slug":"microsoft-killed-mmo-project-blackbird-because-it-was-a-line-item-on-a-ledger-dev-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/?p=76827","title":{"rendered":"Microsoft Killed MMO Project Blackbird Because It Was A Line Item On A Ledger, Dev Says"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former The Elder Scrolls Online director Matt Firor has further discussed the cancellation of ZeniMax’s Project Blackbird, which was aiming to be a cross between Cyberpunk 2077 and Destiny<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Speaking to MinnMax<\/a>, Firor said, “Making games is always a heartbreaking business.” Project Blackbird was canceled for financial reasons, Firor said. He previously said it was the game he had been waiting his entire career to make<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“You could be at the best studio in the world, and decisions happen that impact people. I didn’t agree with what happened, but I understood the reasoning behind it. It is just financial,” he said, as reported by Kotaku<\/a>.<\/p>\n

When Xbox’s management conducted a business review, Firor and his team showed up as “a number on a ledger,” he said. He suggested Project Blackbird was an expensive project, and that contributed to Microsoft’s decision to cancel it.<\/p>\n

“We’re a number on a ledger, and if that number is large, it is ripe for analysis, shall we say, and that number was always large,” he said.<\/p>\n

Firor went on to say that Microsoft, as a company, likes to have businesses where revenue goes up and to the right on a consistent basis. But the video game space is hit-driven and<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Former The Elder Scrolls Online director Matt Firor has further discussed the cancellation of ZeniMax’s Project Blackbird, which was aiming to be a cross between Cyberpunk 2077 and Destiny. Speaking to MinnMax, Firor said, “Making games is always a heartbreaking business.” Project Blackbird was canceled for financial reasons, Firor said. He previously said it was…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":76829,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-76827","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-external","brand-gamespot"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76827"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/26"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=76827"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76827\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":76830,"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76827\/revisions\/76830"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/76829"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=76827"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=76827"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=76827"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}