Following the news that Microsoft is laying off 1900 employees from Activision Blizzard and Xbox, Blizzard has announced that it is canceling the development of an unannounced survival game that was codenamed Odyssey, writes Bloomberg.
In a letter received by the company’s employees on Thursday, many developers involved in Odysey learned that they had been laid off. Those who managed to keep their jobs were told that they would be reassigned to other projects in the future.
As for the game itself, company spokesperson Andrew Reynolds said that the development was canceled “as part of a shift in focus to projects that have greater future growth potential.”
Odyssey, which began development back in 2017, was supposed to be a completely new game like Minecraft and Rust, but with fewer bugs and problems. During development, the team faced many challenges, including switching from Unreal Engine 5 to Synapse, an internal engine designed for mobile games.
Despite the difficulties, people who played early versions said the project looked great. The management had plans to expand the team and aim for a 2026 release, but instead the game was simply canceled.
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