Last week, as covered by other outlets (IGN, GamesIndustry.biz), former cofounder of ZeniMax Online (a subsidiary of ZeniMax Media) Matt Firor took to his LinkedIn page to talk all things 2025—included the reason for his resignation, which was the cancellation of the company’s next major title ‘Project Blackbird‘ and a title Matt waited his “entire career to create”:
Answering the second-most common question – about what led my leaving ZOS – the most obvious explanation is the correct one. 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.
Matt Firor on leaving ZeniMax Online Studios last year.
Project Blackbird had been in development since 2018 per Bloomberg’s Jason Schrier, who also reported that the game had impressed Xbox’s leadership. Despite that, the game was cancelled alongside a host of other titles that followed layoffs back in July of last year.
On a positive note, members of the team behind the cancelled Blackbird project have since formed their own studio, dubbed Sackbird Studios, and Matt has mentioned in his post about “informally advising” some of them:
Right off the top – and to answer the most comment question I get – I am not directly involved in any of the projects that have been spun up by former members of the ZOS team. I am advising some of them informally, but I am not leading them. They are in good hands with their respective leaders and I can’t wait to see what they come up with.
Mr. Firor himself is not out of the industry, however, as he also wrote about his unofficial advising and investment ventures:
So what’s next for me? Honestly, I still haven’t figured that out. I’m not totally sitting on the sidelines. I have been advising some projects and startups in an unofficial capacity, and I’ve made some investments in small teams that I know will play a big part in changing the industry in the future. But I have not yet seriously contemplated spinning up a new development studio.
ZeniMax Online Studios’ current and only project is the long-running ‘The Elder Scrolls Online’ title, which is currently seeing a move to a season-based content delivery system.
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