Blizzard survival game cancelled following Microsoft layoffs

Blizzard’s previously announced untitled survival game has reportedly been canceled amid massive layoffs at Microsoft.

Microsoft has reportedly laid off 1900 employees at Activision Blizzard, with many games, projects, and personnel affected. The scale of how these layoffs affect specific developers and games isn’t immediately clear, but it’s bound to have an impact on some of the biggest titles in the world. 

While it will take time for news of the specific teams affected to be understood, we do know several big changes out of the gate. First of all, Mike Ybarra, President of Blizzard, has announced that he’s leaving the company today. However, that’s not the only major news out of the developer so far. 

In a report by The Verge, it’s said that Blizzard’s previously announced survival game won’t be continuing development. Microsoft’s game content and studios president Matt Booty said in an internal memo that personnel would be: “Shifting some of the people working on it to one of several promising new projects Blizzard has in the early stages of development.”

Players will never get their hands on Blizzard’s Survival game

Blizzard’s survival game was announced in 2022 in a push to try and recruit developers for the team. Not much is known about the game, including what it was called. 

However, in a rare move, the game was shared publicly to bolster the team working on it, including some key art and log lines. While vague, a statement in the initial blog said: “A place full of heroes we have yet to meet, stories yet to be told, and adventures yet to be lived. A vast realm of possibility, waiting to be explored.”

We also saw concept art showing a group of young adults leaving a ‘real’ world setting and going into a colorful fantasy realm. There was also another image showing a high-fantasy world with some hints towards magic usage too.

Blizzard doesn’t put out games based on new IP very often, and sadly it seems the wait for a new one from the publisher is going to be much longer than we thought.