Blizzard's canceled survival game had been in development for over 6 years, was highly praised by employees
Blizzard's unnamed survival game had already been in development for over four years when it was announced in early 2022. Its team doubled in size that year with plans to grow even more in 2023. Now, after over six years of total development time and positive responses to the project from current and former Blizzard employees, the game has been cancelled by Microsoft and its developers are out of jobs.
«I've been let go from Blizzard, along with many many others on the Survival team,» wrote Matt London, the game's former associate narrative director, on X today.
Other Blizzard survival game developers who announced their departures include senior concept artist Marby Kwong, designer Ates Bayrak, senior software engineer Renato Iwashima, character technical artist Matheus Lima, VFX artist Rachel Quitevis, and producer Megan Embree, who had worked at Blizzard for 13 years.
The survival game's director, Craig Amai, was also laid off, and says he's now focused on helping the rest of the former survival game team land on their feet. «If you're looking for talent, the crew coming out of the Unannounced Survival Game are abnormally high quality—I cannot recommend them enough,» Amai wrote in a post on LinkedIn.
Blizzard's survival game was announced as a new world «different from any Blizzard has created.» Two pieces of concept art, the only material that was ever released, showed modern-day humans in a fantasy realm with a floating castle visible through overgrown forests, and also showed a hooded forest ranger who wouldn't be out of place on League of Legends' roster. The crossover of this imagery suggested a premise like The Chronicles of Narnia, where ordinary children are drafted into another world inhabited by fantasy creatures.
The game was well liked within Blizzard. When it was announced in January 2022, current and former Blizzard employees publicly praised the survival game team and project—and this was at the height of mistrust and anger over allegations of
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