Rare’s Everwild, an original game that had apparently been in development for around a decade, has been cancelled. The news was broken by VGC, before being corroborated by IGN sources.
Team members were told at the same time as Rare’s parent company Microsoft announced another absolutely enormous wave of layoffs: despite it being in rude financial health and having about $80 billion in the bank. VGC’s sources say that as part of the so-called restructuring at Rare, some employees are likely to be laid off.
Everwild was announced in 2019 but had been in the works for a long time before that. It was never particularly clear what exactly the game was, beyond third-person and pretty looking, and it seems this might have been a problem behind-the-scenes too: after a trailer in July 2020, things went quiet on Everwild, but the creative director left before it was apparently rebooted in 2021 under Rare veteran Gregg Mayles.
Spencer referenced Everwild earlier this year, though only said that “progress” was being made.
In the wider context, the news of this cancellation may be little surprise. Microsoft has been furiously laying off staff in recent times, and today announced cuts that will see over 9,000 people lose their jobs, many in the gaming division, despite the company being wildly profitable. Microsoft reported net income of $25.8 billion for its most recent quarter.
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Spencer’s ‘hey you’re fired’ memo to Microsoft staff really takes the cake (you can read more from it here), but one thing it didn’t do is go into detail on which studios are going to bear the brunt of them. “Out of respect for those impacted today,” said Spencer, “the specifics of today’s notifications and any organizational shifts will be shared by your team leaders in the coming days.”
I’ve contacted Microsoft for comment on Everwild’s cancellation, and will update with any response.
