After 7 years, Xbox studio The Initiative has been shut down with out releasing a single recreation. As a part of the closure, the sport they have been engaged on, a reboot of traditional franchise Good Darkish, has been cancelled.
Jez Corden of Home windows Central shared the information as a part of ongoing protection of Microsoft reducing 4% of its international workforce.
Home windows Central was given a duplicate of an inner memo despatched by Matt Booty addressing the closure.
“We have now made the choice to cease improvement of Good Darkish and Everwild in addition to wind down a number of unannounced tasks throughout our portfolio. As a part of this, we’re closing considered one of our studios, The Initiative,” wrote Booty.
These different tasks that Booty talked about to date embody Everwild, together with an unannounced MMORP at Zenimax On-line Studios.
Forza Motorsport developer Flip 10 has additionally reportedly misplaced half of its employees.
As for The Initiative, the final publically confirmed headcount was again in 2022, at which level the studio had 56 employees members. This quantity has possible grown as improvement on Good Darkish ramped up, however I can’t discover any info to substantiate actual numbers.
In the identical article, Jez addresses different studios being hit. He mentions that any studio who confirmed one thing on the latest Xbox occasion is “protected,” in response to his sources. Nevertheless, he does point out Undead Labs additionally seems to have been hit by the layoffs.
Undertaking Darkish was final proven off in 2024 on the Xbox Showcase. We have been lastly given a have a look at precise gameplay, however a launch date was by no means talked about. The sport was notably absent from this yr’s occasion.
