Microsoft may have killed their dream project, but the developers behind The Elder Scrolls Online aren’t walking away quietly. The team behind the canceled Project Blackbird has reassembled as Sackbird Studios—and they’re sending a sharp, confident message back to Xbox.

The gaming industry rarely offers happy endings, but this one comes close. After Microsoft pulled the plug on their ambitious MMO, a group of seasoned developers from The Elder Scrolls Online decided to take matters into their own hands. It’s been a brutal year for gaming—layoffs, cancellations, and corporate shakeups have hit the sector hard—but Xbox’s major restructuring left one project especially wounded: Project Blackbird, an online title that Phil Spencer reportedly enjoyed before its cancellation.

Those same developers have now bounced back under the name Sackbird Studios, an independent team based in Baltimore. “Sackbird Studios is a fully independent, employee-owned studio,” said CEO Lee Ridout. “We’re self-funded, have no outside investors, and that gives us complete creative freedom. After years in the AAA industry, we wanted the freedom to take smart risks without waiting for corporate approval or chasing quarterly targets.”

The team has already started work on a brand-new project for PC and consoles but refuses to commit to release dates or marketing hype. “When I heard Blackbird was being canceled and so many talented people were losing their jobs, something lit a fire inside me,” Ridout explained. “We realized that the only way to protect our craft and our people was to build a studio where creative independence isn’t negotiable.”

Source: 3djuegos