On the 25th of January, in the wake of the Xbox – Activision Blizzard acquisition news, Blizzard Entertainment, famed for titles such as World of Warcraft, Overwatch and other massive games, announced their ‘unannounced’ survival game. The news came in form of a Tweet on the official Blizzard Twitter.
The tweet, not an announcement as such, but more a recruitment advert, has fans excited for what this new survival IP could be, with the genre becoming more and more popular. The game is currently set to be releasing on ‘PC and console’.
Blizzard’s new ‘unannounced’, untitled surival game
Not to get into the whole exclusivity thing again but the lack of and ‘s’ at the end of the word ‘console’ does suggest it might be an exclusive to the Xbox ecosystem. That said it could also just be referring to console in the general term, but I digress. That is another article for another day.
Mike Ybarra, President of Blizzard, has been on the record in saying that this untitled game (or ‘unannounced’) is currently in a playable state. This has led to suggestions that the game must be closer to release than potentially thought, with many having guessed it was in the early stages of development. But Mike’s statement seemed to be supported by Jez Corden of Windows Central, on his and Rand Al Thor 19’s podcast last night, Xbox Two. A fantastic podcast by the way, if you like video games, Jez and Rand are two very fun dudes to listen to on a Friday night. Check it out here.
On Xbox Two’s episode that aired on 11th of Feb 2022, Jez suggests that the unannounced Blizzard game is closer than we think, speculating that it could be releasing as early as 2023! If Jez’ suspicions are correct, and if this Activision Blizzard acquisition by Xbox does indeed go through, this will likely be one of the first games to release with Activision Blizzard officially under the Microsoft umbrella.
Will the game be the first Xbox exclusive (if there are any)?
Will it be exclusive? I don’t know. If it is a multiplayer online experience in the veins of ARK, Rust or Minecraft, I can potentially see it being opened up to other platforms. What I am sure gamers are keener on though, is when will we see this game? Will it be shown off in the summer, or will Blizzard keep their cards closer to their chest until literally right before launch, a la Bethesda Game Studios?
For anyone who likes survival games and knows of the calibre of Blizzard, this is an exciting time. I only hope the internal issues that Blizzard has had, has not had too negative an impact on this games development, thus slowing down their recruitment. I hope this is not the case, as there does seem to be a bit of optimism around that Microsoft can have a positive cultural impact on the studios.
Regardless, this looks to be a cool project, based soley on the concept art, and the fact that it is a survival game (a genre i love). We will be sure to keep up-to-date with the progress of this game.
