Canceled Blizzard survival game was in development for 6 years, and its engine spelled its doom
Jan. 26, 2024The game engine Synapse is at least partly to blame for Odyssey’s cancelation
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We’re learning more information aboutBlizzard’s canceled survival gameand the circumstances that led to its cancelation.
On Thursday, we learned Blizzard canceled an ambitioussurvival game set “in a whole new universe"and moved some of its developers to other projects. At the same time, we were learning thatMicrosoftis laying off1,900 employees across its gaming divisionand that Blizzard president Mike Ybarra is stepping down from his position.
In the years since, Blizzard gradually expanded Odyssey’s development team, but eventually the project suffered technical challenges due to the engine that was being used in development. Bloomberg reports that Odyssey was originally being developed using Epic’s Unreal Engine, but Blizzard moved it over to its own internal engine Synapse, which had been used for mobile games, to support its plans for massive maps with the capacity to support 100 players at a time. That’s when problems started arising, reportedly due to the engine being “slow to coalesce.”
“As difficult as making these decisions are, experimentation and risk taking are part of Blizzard’s history and the creative process,” said Blizzard spokesman Andrew Reynolds. “Ideas make their way into other games or in some cases become games of their own. Starting something completely new is among the hardest things to do in gaming, and we’re immensely grateful to all of the talented people who supported the project.”
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After scoring a degree in English from ASU, I worked as a copy editor while freelancing for places like SFX Magazine, Screen Rant, Game Revolution, and MMORPG on the side. Now, as GamesRadar’s west coast Staff Writer, I’m responsible for managing the site’s western regional executive branch, AKA my apartment, and writing about whatever horror game I’m too afraid to finish.
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