Blizzard Cancels Survival Game “Odyssey” Amidst Mass Layoffs
In light of recent events, Blizzard has announced the cancellation of their latest survival game, “Odyssey”. This decision comes after Microsoft announced massive layoffs at Blizzard and Xbox, affecting over 1900 employees.
“Odyssey” was first announced about two years ago, as Blizzard revealed their plans for a survival game set in a completely new fantasy universe. Shortly after, it was revealed that “Odyssey” would offer a first-person perspective, generating significant interest among Blizzard fans. Blizzard has always aimed to make new game concepts and genres more accessible and refined than ever before, as seen with titles like “World of Warcraft” and more recently, “Overwatch.”
However, according to reports, “Odyssey” faced numerous challenges during its development phase. Originally, the game idea was presented by Craig Amai, former lead designer from the World of Warcraft: Warlords of Draenor team, back in 2017. Prototyping work began on the Unreal Engine, but management at Blizzard decided to move production to their internal engine, Synapse, originally designed for mobile games. This change occurred because the “Odyssey” team encountered difficulties adapting the Unreal Engine to support “vast maps, accommodating up to 100 players simultaneously.” However, this is somewhat questionable considering well-known games on the Unreal Engine, like Fortnite, can support up to 100 players in a Battle Royale mode. Additionally, many other game developers have successfully adapted the engine to handle even larger player counts and maps.
Despite this, the “Odyssey” team faced even more difficulties on the Synapse engine. According to sources, the developers hoped that Microsoft, the new owner of Activision Blizzard, would agree to return to the Unreal Engine. Early game tests seemed promising, but the development process for the game would likely have taken until 2026 or even longer. Ultimately, it was concluded that Synapse was not ready for production, leading to the cancellation of “Odyssey”.
This is not the first time Blizzard has canceled a game. The community has previously been informed of the cancellation of “Starcraft: Ghost”, a console stealth action game that was temporarily shelved in 2006, and the MMO “Titan”, which was canceled in 2014. Some elements and concepts from “Titan” eventually made their way into “Overwatch”, so it will be interesting to see if the same happens with “Odyssey”.
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