Rare’s Everwild Game Has Reportedly Been Cancelled

Everwild, a game that has been in development for many years at Sea of Thieves developer Rare has reportedly been cancelled. Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier first reported the news on Bluesky before it was separately confirmed by other outlets such as VGC.

I wouldn’t blame you if you forgot about Everwild as the game hasn’t been shown in years. The first announcement trailer in November 2019 was followed by a second trailer in July 2020, but there hasn’t been any news about the game since then. As a brand new IP from Rare, it also wasn’t really clear what kind of game Everwild was, and VGC reported back in 2021 that the game’s design had been completely rebooted.

The cancellation of Everwild follows the news of Microsoft laying off 9,000 employees as it kicks off its new fiscal year, with job cuts reportedly affecting Microsoft’s gaming division quite hard. In an internal memo, Phil Spencer, CEO of Microsoft Gaming said that the company will “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.”

While it’s still unclear if other Xbox game projects will be affected by this latest round of layoffs, there are valid concerns about other titles that have been in development for many years, such as the Perfect Dark reboot. The game is being developed by The Initiative, Microsoft’s “AAAA” studio in collaboration with Crystal Dynamics, but its development has reportedly been difficult. It probably doesn’t help that Perfect Dark, a franchise that was born 25 years ago on the Nintendo 64, is probably unknown to most gamers under 30.

In a separate report, Windows Central’s Jez Corden said today that Microsoft’s next-gen Xbox plans are not being impacted by the layoffs. The company recently announced that AMD chips will power next-generation Xbox Consoles and gaming handhelds, but it increasingly looks like the next Xbox console could be Windows-based, just like the upcoming ROG Xbox Ally Handheld from Asus.