If Gregg is okay with it then whatever, but I doubt he'd be okay with his friends being laid off so who knows.

"Blizzard VP of quality assurance Wladia Summers tells all QA to work from home. "Today will be difficult," she wrote in an email to staff."

Blizzard QA is being hit by the looks.

My cynical take is Microsoft is laying them off before the unions get to them, not that unions prevent layoffs but they make them harder and employees get more out of unions, Microsoft will look to layoff anyone that can unionise so they can cheaply outsource it to underpaid and overworked 3rd parties.

I would have said that Zenimax Online's MMO would have taken about 10 years in total in development so if they announced it now then people would be waiting for 3 years, I don't actually mind waiting but are you telling me that people haven't bitched about waiting even 2-3 years for a game to release? And maybe the reason they didn't want to reveal it early was because they wanted a short marketing cycle? Todd Howard said he doesn't want to reveal stuff early now, does that mean we cancel his games too? Lol.

Even The Elder Scrolls Online took 7 years of development and Kestrel was a New IP + They were working on a new engine at the same time. The Elder Scrolls Online has been a big success but I doubt it has another 10 years in it, which is how long it will take now for Zenimax next project. MMOs taking long to make is fine though, because they tend to last a long time.

Now we need The Elder Scrolls Online to last 21+ years...Do you not see how risky that is?

It's an MMO, you obviously announce that earlier as other games because you need closed and open betas YEARS before release.

"Hearing State of Decay 3 studio Undead Labs has layoffs, not yet clear how widespread. The meetings are showing up on people's calendars on a rolling basis."

https://bsky.app/profile/ethangach.bsky.social/post/3lsyls57dgs2s

The common belief from The Elder Scrolls Online fans was that Zenimax was winding down on The Elder Scrolls Online because they straight up moved from a chapter expansion model, which meant a guaranteed major story expansion released every year on the dot, to a season pass model which they straight up said sometimes will mean no major expansions for the year, it is like when Halo Infinite moved from the Season model to what they have now, which results in less content.

The reasonable explanation was: They're doing that because they're shifting over to Kestrel and going full steam ahead on its development/prepping for release, Elder Scrolls Online will be winded down and Kestrel will take over. Now they will have to completely change their plans (again) because if The Elder Scrolls Online doesn't last another 10 years they're getting shut down.

Now I mean, I love The Elder Scrolls Online so I'm not angry about more TESO content obviously but this is such a fucking mess, and I still don't believe even going back to the original chapter expansion model, that TESO has 10 years of life left in it, the combat is already incredibly outdated, multiple MMOs are better "MMOs" than it. The major appeal of TESO is the stories, lore and characters to an Elder Scrolls fan, so I speculate its fanbase is currently heavily reliant on core Elder Scrolls fans and not traditional MMO players.

What happens when they move off it when the next Elder Scrolls releases?

My feelings on the confirmed and rumored cancellations of the day:

Everwild- When development was rebooted in 2021, we heard they were aiming for a 2024 release. It is now mid 2025 and the game didn't even have a teaser trailer on the Summer Showcase, can't say I'm surprised by the cancellation.

Project Kestrel/Blackbird- I'm a bit sad about this one, Zenimax had some huge talent on this project including a top Red Dead Redemption 1 dev (one of my favorite games of all time), with development starting in 2018 with a team of like 10 people, and ramping up to 200 devs by November 2022, and was likely more like 400-500 devs by now. Zenimax Online opened multiple satellite studios to work on it, was developing a new engine with help from some of Xbox's best graphical developers like Coalition and Ninja Theory, and there were reports that the game was coming along nicely in recent years after multiple story reboots earlier in development (which is why it took 4 years to build from like 10 devs to 200). Zenimax Online as a whole could be up the creek without a paddle at this point, Elder Scrolls Online development seems to be winding down as the playerbase dwindles (once regularly in the top 50 most played games on Xbox when I would look a couple of years ago, it is currently down at #114), and now they have no game to transition into, making them a ripe target for a future full studio closure if Microsoft's bean counters decide more employees need laying off.

Perfect Dark- This one isn't confirmed cancelled yet, Jez said he was looking into rumors he had heard that the game had been cancelled though. This one would be more surprising to me than the others. Not only was this game hyped to hell, partially due to earlier AAAA confusion (it was always AAA), but also due to being the only AAA built-from-the-ground-up studio Xbox had recently (the rest were all acquired), and they even made a show of bringing in Crystal Dynamics to assist on the gameplay and The Coalition to assist on the Unreal 5 graphics to make sure hype was even higher. The game even had a gameplay trailer at the 2024 Summer Showcase, implying it was fairly far along in development, whereas Blackbird and Everwild had no gameplay released anytime recently. While Joanna's redesign had received some flak due to having less sex appeal than her earlier two incarnations, the game very likely would still be a success if released, especially with Gamepass boosting player counts. Something bad must have been going on behind the scenes if this one is actually cancelled.

When a game not being cancelled is now the good news at Microsoft.

Layoffs close to release though, is a concerning.

Fuuuuuuuuuuck