Back in July — when we first started hearing about mass layoffs and project cancellations at Xbox — we learnt that ZeniMax Online Studios' new game, Project Blackbird, was one of those cancellations. With it came several job losses, and now a few of those veterans who formerly headed up the Bethesda team have created their own development studio.
Insert: Sackbird Studios, "an independent, employee-owned game studio that is self-funded for multiple years". The newly-formed team, comprised of fewer than 10 developers at present, hasn't announced a game or anything yet - but it is "confirming active development on an original project for PC and consoles".
"The founding team—former leads and key contributors on Elder Scrolls Online and core developers from the ambitious but ultimately canceled Project Blackbird—describe the new studio as a developer-first environment with a long runway and a tight, senior team (currently under ten people). The cancellation of Project Blackbird, while disappointing, inspired the founders to build a studio designed to avoid many of the pitfalls they’ve experienced across the industry."
As you may have already figured out, the name Sackbird Studios is a rather on-the-nose reference to the aforementioned defunct Microsoft project and its subsequent firings, but it doesn't sound as though their whole time at ZeniMax is looked on poorly.
Here's what Sackbird CEO Lee Ridout had to say on that:
"We’re grateful for our time at ZeniMax Online Studios; it shaped us as developers and as people,
When I learned that Blackbird was being cancelled and a lot of people were losing their jobs, it lit a fire. We realized the best way to protect our craft—and our team—was to create a studio where creative independence isn’t negotiable."
As we mentioned earlier, there's no concrete game announcement attached to this studio reveal, but we know that the team's first project is targeting a PC and console release. We'll probably have to be patient to see this one in action, but given the Bethesda pedigree behind it, the results should be exciting when they come to pass.