Back in July, when Microsoft cancelled a bunch of projects amidst a huge shakeup for its Xbox division, The Elder Scrolls Online boss Matt Firor left the company — and now, roughly six months later, the former ZeniMax leader has gone into a bit more detail about why he chose to leave amidst this shakeup.
Taking to social media in the new year, Firor outright said that the cancellation of Project Blackbird "led to my resignation", having "waited my entire career" to create this mystery new IP at ZeniMax Online Studios. We'll share the link to the full message down below, but do bear in mind that you'll be redirected to BlueSky to see the full images:
"Project Blackbird was the game I had waited my entire career to create, and having it canceled led to my resignation. My heart and thoughts are always with the impacted team members, many of whom I had worked 20+ years with, and all of whom were the most dedicated amazingly talented group of developers in the industry."
Moving on from Project Blackbird, Firor wished the ESO team well for the future, whilst confirming that he's still not made his next big move yet. After being at ZeniMax for nearly two decades, and The Elder Scrolls Online project taking up more than half of that time, we're sure Firor will have plenty of suitors when he's ready to make that move.
As for the folks who stayed at ZeniMax Online, we heard in September that some of them still want to make something new despite this high-profile cancellation, but only time will tell whether Microsoft and Xbox will let that happen.