Today a series of unfortunate news was announced for Xbox and Blizzard. Not only was it revealed that 1,900 employees of the Microsoft Gaming division would be laid off, but Odysseya project in which those responsible for Overwatch They had been working for six years, it had been cancelled. Although no reason was offered at the time for this decision, A new report gives us insight into what led companies to this conclusion.
Recently, Bloomberg journalist Jason Schreier had the opportunity to speak with current and former Blizzard employees to find out what was going on with Odyssey. Let us remember that this title began its development in 2017, but it was not until two years ago that this project was made known to the public, and Its proposal was to be a survival game, similar to Minecraft and rust. At the end of the day, the decision to cancel this project was the result of a series of problems with the graphics engine that was chosen.
Originally, Odyssey It was planned using the Unreal Engine, Epic Games' popular graphics engine. However, the tools provided here were not enough for the studio's ambition, since they wanted to build a huge game capable of hosting up to 100 players at the same time. Thus, The managers indicated that this project should be in Synapse, an internal engine of the company.
However, Synapse was anything but optimal for what Odyssey could become. This graphics engine was conceived for mobile games and as something that would be shared in many of his projects. It was precisely this that generated significant problems, since the technology took a while to become understandable to developers.and the title's artists spent time prototyping content in Unreal Engine that they knew would have to be scrapped later.
After the acquisition of Microsoft, Mike Ybarra, director of Blizzard, mentioned during an interview at BlizzCon in November last year that their parent company, that is, Microsoft, would give them the freedom to work with the technology they wanted, this without the need to have to face a board of directors. Thus, The team of Odyssey I was hoping to leave Synapse behind, and get back to working on Unreal Engine.
Although in recent months positive results have been reported, to the extent that those who came to play Odyssey They noted that the title was fun, the game was still far from being a reality. At the time, a team of 100 people came to work on this project, and Blizzard even noted that They intended to increase the number of workers considerably to meet a launch expectation of 2026something that many did not consider possible.
However, today we know that this story does not have a positive ending. Odyssey was cancelled, and People who worked on the title have noted that this decision was a consequence of using Synapse, which simply wasn't ready to go into production at this time. When questioned, this is what Andrew Reynolds, a Blizzard representative, commented:
“As difficult as it may be to make these decisions, experimentation and risk-taking are part of Blizzard's history and creative process. Ideas make their way into other games or, in some cases, become games of their own. Starting something completely new is one of the hardest things to do in video games and we are immensely grateful to all the talented people who supported the project.”
As a result of the changes Microsoft announced today, some employees will lose their jobs, while others will be reassigned to projects that are in the early stages of development. This was a case where the managers chose to cancel the project, instead of continuing to spend on something they weren't sure when it was going to hit the market. Without a doubt, a regrettable loss for Blizzard. On related topics, you can learn more about the Microsoft Gaming layoffs here.
Editor's Note:
This was a case where the scale of the project was so large, that Microsoft and Blizzard chose to cancel the project rather than continue spending money on it. It was estimated that the title would be available in 2026, but it was very likely that it would be delayed. On this occasion, it seems that everything was against Odyssey.
Via: Bloomberg
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