If you read this morning’s Microsoft layoff news – that Microsoft is laying off more than 9000 more workers in addition to the 6000 it shed a few months ago, closing whole substudios and shuttering games – then you already know that ZeniMax Online Studios has seen the closing down of its in-development MMORPG, Blackbird, alongside those layoffs. Unfortunately, Blackbird doesn’t appear to be have been the only segment of ZOS impacted: Now, we’re losing Matt Firor too.
“After more than 18 years leading ZeniMax Online Studios, I’ll be stepping away later this month,” Firor says in his letter posted to ZOS’s Twitter account this afternoon. It’s not entirely clear from his memo whether he’s leaving the company, leaving game dev, or leaving the team. All he says is that he “won’t be working on the game anymore” but will be playing it alongside the rest of us.
So who’s taking over?
“The studio and The Elder Scrolls Online will be in great hands under the director of new Studio Head Jo Burba, along with Executive Producer Susan Kath and Game Director Rich Lambert,” he says. (We cleaned up the comma mess in there.) “Together, this leadership team has spearheaded many of ESO’s biggest ideas and expansions and will continue to make this game something we’re all proud of.”
As we noted, we don’t currently know whether Firor has chosen to leave to save the team, has been ousted by Microsoft, is resigning in protest, is moving to a different project at Microsoft, or has taken this disastrous corporate upheaval as the right time to bail on that noise. Either way, he’s been a pivotal figure in the MMORPG genre for more than two decades, and I think I’m OK to speak for all of us when I say, this completely sucks.
