Former Elder Scrolls Online director Matt Firor has opened up online on his reasoning on leaving ZeniMax Online Studio back in July 2025. Matt Firor had been the leader of the game studio since its inception back in 2007, causing rumors to circulate on the reason for his departure. On a LinkedIn post (then later posted on BlueSky), Firor went into detail on the reason for his departure: “Answering the second-most common question – about what led my 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 with 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.”
Before Firor’s departure from ZeniMax, Microsoft had done a round of layoffs earlier in July, amounting to around 9,000 employees laid off–a bulk of those layoffs came from the Xbox division. Alongside the layoffs and the closure developing studio the Inititative, multiple game titles were scrapped, which include the Perfect Dark remake and the production of the new title Rare’s Everwild. The unknown project, lovingly dubbed Project Blackbird, was subsequently scrapped as well, causing Firor to leave on his own accord.
Elder Scrolls Online continues to persevere through the turbulent times, but as noted on PCGamer, morale isn’t exactly high: “As for The Elder Scrolls Online itself, new ZeniMax boss Jo Burba said in August 2025 that “the game isn’t going anywhere,” but it sure doesn’t sound like morale at the studio is in good place: Describing the post-cuts ZeniMax as a “carcass of workers,” senior QA tester Autumn Mitchell said a few weeks after the layoffs that “Microsoft just took everything that could have been great about the culture and collaboration and decimated it.”
Firor has made no official announcement on his future endeavors but has been quietly assess his options for the future.