Well, this is certainly interesting! The team behind Zenimax Online’s cancelled ‘Project Blackbird’ have formed a new independent studio. Amusingly, these folks have named the new team ‘Sackbird Studios’.
If you cast your minds back to earlier this year, this was yet another moment where everyone was very mad at Microsoft, and with good reason. We saw Everwild cancelled over at Rare, Perfect Dark and The Initiative Studio cancelled and shuttered, and though it took a while to confirm, Contraband ended up being cancelled too.
Another game that had its development ended was a project that was in flight over at Zenimax Online Studios, codenamed ‘Project Blackbird‘. Bloomberg’s Jason Schrier reported that the project had been in development since 2018, and despite impressing Xbox leadership, ultimately was shut down.
Well, not to worry. That same team has now formed a new team named Sackbird Studios, “an independent, employee-owned game studio that is self-funded for multiple years.” Apparently, there’s no outside investors and they retain full creative control.
In a blog post on their new website, the team have shared a little more now that the studio has taken flight. Per David Worley, COO at Sackbird Studios, “After years in AAA, we wanted the freedom to take smart risks without waiting for a greenlight or chasing quarterly targets. We’re fully employee-owned and funded, which means we only answer to people who are passionate about games.”
Per the blog post, the founding team consists of ‘former leads and key contributors on Elder Scrolls Online and core developers from the ambitious but ultimately canceled Project Blackbird‘ have described the new studio as a ‘developer-first environment with a long runway and a tight, senior team.’
According to them, the cancellation of Project Blackbird directly inspired the founders of Sackbird Studios to ‘build a studio designed to avoid many of the pitfalls they’ve experienced across the industry.‘
I for one, love the name.
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