Blizzard upcoming survival game has been canceled after Microsoft layoffs

Microsoft is laying off around 1,900 people from its video game workforce, there is further confirmation that a survival game that was in the works over at Blizzard Entertainment has now been canceled.

“Today's actions affect multiple teams within Blizzard, including development teams, shared service organizations, and corporate functions,” Matt Booty, head of Xbox Studios, said in a note to staff (verified by TechRadar Gaming). “As part of this focus, Blizzard is ending development on its survival game project and will be shifting some of the people working on it to one of several promising new projects Blizzard has in the early stages of development.”

In a statement shared with TechRadar Gaming, a Microsoft spokesperson said: “We will share more about the status of upcoming games, services, and partnerships in the future.”

The upcoming survival game was announced in 2022 and was set to be the first new game released by Blizzard since Overwatch back in 2016. In early 2022, Blizzard released a small snippet of the survival game on Twitter/ X, describing it as “an all-new universe.”

“A place full of heroes we have yet to meet, stories yet to be told, and adventures yet to be lived,” a blog post described. “A vast realm of possibility, waiting to be explored.”

“For thirty years, Blizzard has been creating universes for millions of players around the globe. This requires a diverse team of developers willing to lend their voices, to listen, and to be heard. That is our mission.”

The blog post also advertised various job positions on this now-canceled project; these included a lead artist and several design and programming jobs. It's a shame that what looked like an exciting new project will now likely never see the light of day.