Sources: Everwild has been cancelled as Xbox layoffs hit Rare
The original IP had been in development in some form for over a decade
Rare’s long-in-development original IP, Everwild, has been cancelled, sources have told VGC.
According to people with knowledge of the project, team members were informed of the news, which comes amid significant layoffs across Microsoft and Xbox, which were formally announced on Wednesday.
Employees are likely to lose their jobs as part of broader restructuring of Seas of Thieves developer Rare, the sources said.
VGC has asked Microsoft for comment on this story and will update it when we receive a response.
Microsoft confirms
Microsoft has confirmed Everwild‘s cancellation, alongside the closure of Perfect Dark studio The Initiative.
“We have made the decision to stop development of Perfect Dark and Everwild as well as wind down several unannounced projects across our portfolio,” said Microsoft Studios’ Matt Booty.
“As part of this, we are closing one of our studios, The Initiative. These decisions, along with other changes across our teams, reflect a broader effort to adjust priorities and focus resources to set up our teams for greater success within a changing industry landscape. We did not make these choices lightly, as each project and team represent years of effort, imagination, and commitment.”
Leadership to depart
Gregg Mayles, Rare’s most experienced and influential game designer, will leave the company after more than 35 years following the cancellation of Everwild, sources have told VGC.
According to the sources, executive producer Louise O’Connor, another Rare veteran whose first project was Conker’s Bad Fur Day for Nintendo 64, will also leave the company following Everwild’s cancellation.
Including its prototype phase, Everwild had been in development for over a decade, with anonymous developers indicating they had struggled to nail down a clear direction for the title, even after a recent reboot of the project.
Rare first announced Everwild in November 2019 and released another trailer in July 2020. Updates on the game were scarce in the years that followed, except for gaming boss Phil Spencer‘s insistence that “progress” was being made on the title earlier this year.
“It has been [a while]. And we’ve been able to give those teams time in what they’re doing which is good and still have a portfolio like we have,” he said. “It’s like a dream that Matt (Booty) and I have had for a long time, so it’s finally good to be there. We can give those teams time.”
Back in 2021, VGC sources with knowledge of Everwild’s development revealed that the game’s design had essentially been “restarted from scratch”, and veteran designer Gregg Mayles was put in charge of the project.
Mayles is one of Rare’s most experienced designers, having led Donkey Kong Country, Banjo-Kazooie, Viva Piñata, and Sea of Thieves.
Xbox’s then-Game Studios boss Matt Booty later said Rare’s Everwild team wanted to make sure it had “something special” before showing the game publicly again.
Founded in 1985, Rare is one of the UK’s most historic game developers, best known for Battletoads, Donkey Kong Country, GoldenEye 007, and Banjo-Kazooie.
Microsoft acquired Rare in 2002, and it has since gone on to create titles such as Kameo, Viva Piñata, Kinect Sports, and Sea of Thieves under the Xbox banner.
Microsoft confirmed a significant wave of layoffs on Wednesday, which could reportedly see as much as 4%, or roughly 9,100, of the company’s total employees, across all departments, including gaming, affected.
“We continue to implement organizational and workforce changes that are necessary to position the company and teams for success in a dynamic marketplace,” a Microsoft spokesperson said.
In a message sent to all staff, Microsoft’s head of gaming, Phil Spencer, stated that the cuts were designed to “end or decrease work in certain areas of the business and follow Microsoft’s lead in removing layers of management to increase agility and effectiveness.”
