With Destiny 2’s active development now over, fans are increasingly demanding Destiny 3, but it turns out Xbox once had something remarkably similar in the pipeline. ZeniMax Online Studios spent years building an online shooter codenamed Project Blackbird, which was reportedly full of promise before becoming one of the casualties of Microsoft’s 2025 cuts.
The end of Destiny 2’s active development has not only marked a turning point for Bungie, but also reignited one very familiar demand across the community: “We want Destiny 3.” Following the final major update, Monument of Triumph, released on June 9, the game will remain playable, but it will no longer receive regular live-service content updates. The future of the franchise remains uncertain, and Bungie has not announced a sequel, which has only made the gap left by such a major shared-world sci-fi shooter feel even more obvious.
It now appears that Xbox had come surprisingly close to building its own answer to that gap. ZeniMax Online Studios, the developer behind The Elder Scrolls Online, had been working on a new, unannounced MMO under the codename Project Blackbird since 2018. The project was not cancelled in 2022, but during Microsoft’s broad 2025 layoffs, when Xbox also shut down or cancelled several major projects, including the Perfect Dark reboot and Rare’s Everwild. By that point, Blackbird had been in development for years, was built around bespoke technology, and reportedly had around 300 people working on it.
Xbox Almost Had Its Own Destiny
Jason Schreier discussed the cancelled project in more detail in a recent YouTube video. The Bloomberg journalist was looking broadly at the problems that have brought Xbox to its current position when he turned to Project Blackbird, describing it as a striking online shooter and saying he had seen exclusive material from it. Schreier compared the game to Destiny, arguing that it could have been a major opportunity for Xbox precisely as Bungie begins winding down Destiny 2. “Destiny just disappeared, and if Xbox had a game like Blackbird ready to go and fill that void it left, it could have been a huge success. I’ve heard nothing but positive things about the game from some of the people who worked on it. It was an ambitious and expensive project that they had dedicated a lot of time to. It had its own problems, but I think everything I’ve heard is so positive that it’s a real shame they cancelled it. I think it could have helped fill a much-needed gap for Xbox right now. But oh well, that’s how it goes.”
This is not the first time Blackbird has received serious praise. Earlier reports suggested that Phil Spencer, head of Microsoft Gaming, was highly impressed when he had the chance to try the game, while several former developers have spoken positively about the project in public. Matt Firor, then the head of ZeniMax Online Studios, later said that Blackbird was the game he had wanted to make throughout his entire career. The project was not intended to be just another online title, but a new universe that could have become the studio’s second major pillar alongside The Elder Scrolls Online.
According to Schreier, the cancellation ultimately came down to the financial pressure that followed the acquisition of Activision Blizzard. “Around the time of that acquisition, the pressure to become profitable suddenly began. That’s when Xbox started to see things get really bad,” he explained. A costly MMO that had been in development for years and depended on its own technology was an easy target in that environment, even if internal feedback suggested that the game was working and had impressed Xbox leadership.
The loss of Project Blackbird is therefore more than the story of another cancelled Xbox project. It was an online shooter that might have mattered even more in the current moment: Destiny 2’s active era is over, Destiny 3 is nowhere in sight, and Xbox has already discarded a potentially similar game of its own. Fans are now left not only wondering when Bungie’s universe will continue, but also what the industry might have looked like if Blackbird had actually reached players.
Source: 3DJuegos, Windows Central
