After 1,900 layoffs from Microsoft in January, many of which affected the acquired Activision-Blizzard teams, and resulted in project cancellations, Blizzard is staffing up for a new unannounced game.
Several listings, including one looking for a “Creative Director - Unannounced Game”, specifying that they are looking for someone with extensive experience to oversee an unannounced project. Standard stuff for this kind of role. In the listing, there are a few basic details to start guessing about:
“Fully own the process of developing our game’s IP, working with Art and Game Design leadership to develop the settings, characters, themes, and multi-season story arcs within that world”. Multi-season arcs and development on characters, settings, and themes to include them are all things we can point to in Blizzard games as we know them. One possibly important detail not included in the listing is anything about a new IP, so this would be reasonable to consider might be to create something based off of an existing Blizzard IP.
There are other listings for this project, including Senior Art Director - Unannounced Game and Design Director, Combat AI - Unannounced Game.
Blizzard had been working on an original IP for its survival title, which was one of the casualties of the recent cuts. Many companies, when announcing layoffs in recent months have made declarations of sticking to their existing owned IP and to focus on giving consumers more of what they’ve already shown they want. More sequels, spinoffs, and new takes on existing IPs. If Blizzard is cooking up a new project based on an existing IP, they have lots of room to work with.
There’s even some speculation based on Phil Spencer’s comments in October that Microsoft might explore Activision Blizzard’s back catalogue. It is likely going to be a good while before this mystery is solved, but let the guessing begin.
