Project Blackbird's Cancelation Has Me Worried About Western-Made MMOs

So, two pretty big MMO stories just landed, and they paint a clear picture of where the genre's heading. Over in the East, Bellatores — an open-world MMORPG built in Unreal Engine 5 — is getting ready to launch. Meanwhile, in the West, Microsoft just quietly canned ZeniMax Online Studios’ long-running MMO project.

Bellatores from NYOU is set in a medieval fantasy world, with real-time combat, massive PvP battles, and a classless system that lets you build your character around weapons and skills instead of levels. The game leans into player freedom, dynamic world events, and a player-driven economy for crafting gear. There’s an upcoming closed beta in Korea from July 30 to August 3. We're not sure if it'll be free-to-play, but Korean MMOs usually are.

ZeniMax’s project — which went by the codename Project Blackbird — had been cooking since 2018, with over 200 devs working on it. The new IP featured cross-platform support and a custom engine. But during Microsoft’s big round of layoffs in July (which hit 9,000 workers), it got shut down. Just like that, another Western MMO bites the dust before we ever get even a trailer.

BREAKING: The new MMORPG project from Zenimax Online Studios, maker of Elder Scrolls Online, has been canceled as part of the Xbox layoffs, sources tell Bloomberg News. The project, code-named Blackbird, had been in development since 2018. Still more news to come this morning.

— Jason Schreier (@jasonschreier.bsky.social) July 2, 2025 at 8:05 AM

Korean studios seem all-in on MMORPGs — they’ve got the infrastructure, the monetization systems, and the audience to back it up. Meanwhile, Western publishers appear to see MMOs as too expensive and risky; they’re not worth the long dev cycles in this age of layoffs and live-service burnout.

This genre is fading away in the West, while flourishing in the East.