Matt Firor Quit ZeniMax As ‘The Game He Waited His Entire Career to Create’ Was Canceled

In July, Matt Firor left ZeniMax Online Studios after 18 years at the company. He stepped down from the position of President after years of spearheading the development of The Elder Scrolls Online. Two days later, details emerged online about Project Blackbird, ZeniMax’s canceled MMO that was slated to be the studio’s next big title after ESO.

Blackbird had been in development for several years, but the strong arm of Microsoft came down heavy on the project and the studio amid a wave of layoffs and cost-cutting actions during the rocky summer of 2025.

In a new post on social media, Matt Firor has finally confirmed that he resigned from ZeniMax after almost two decades because Blackbird was shut down.

Confirming What Many Suspected

Matt Firor has emerged on social media six months to the day since he departed ZeniMax Online Studios, which might be linked to some kind of post-departure NDA or privacy clause having expired. He made a lengthy statement that clearly explained why he’d departed the studio he’d devoted almost half his life to.

In his words:

Answering the second-most common question, about what led (to me) leaving ZOS, the most obvious explanation is the correct one.

Project Blackbird was the game I had waited my entire career to create, and having it canceled led to my resignation. My heart and thoughts are always wwith the impacted team members, many of whom I had worked 20+ years with, and all of whom were the most dedicated, amazingly talented group of developers in the industry.

Firor revealed that he’s still evaluating what comes next while he consults on some other projects and lends his experience and knowledge to other startups ‘in an unofficial capacity.’

He also confirmed he has been actively investing in studios that will ‘play a big part in changing the industry in the future,’ but hasn’t considered opening his own studio.

When Project Blackbird was canceled, it was alongside a claim that Phil Spencer loved the game, as did other ‘Xbox executives’, but it wasn’t enough to keep the project safe.

In another report, it was claimed that the focus of Blackbird would have been around ‘vertical gameplay’, offering players a grappling hook and other tools that would allow them to climb and wall-run across the game’s many surfaces, almost in a Spider-Man style.

It featured augmented humans with a deep character customization system that would allow users to ‘sculpt’ their bodies with biomodifications, cybernetics, outfits, and more. It would have been a classic human vs. AI story fused with anti-capitalist themes and a cyberpunk vibe.

Are you surprised that Matt Firor left ZeniMax after Blackbird was canceled? Let us know what you’re thinking on the Insider Gaming Discord server.

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