Blizzard's cancelled survival game Odyssey resurfaces in alleged leaks showing its fairytale "new universe"

Blizzard's cancelled survival game, said to have been called Odyssey, has resurfaced in a series of alleged screenshots.

Blizzard announced the project early on with the concept art above, which seemingly had our characters leaving their modern-day urban home and entering a fairytale fantasy world set in a "whole new universe." After years in development, Microsoft and Blizzard scrapped the game just three months post-acquisition, alongside the layoff of almost 2,000 employees. 

Neither company had formally shown what Odyssey looked like in motion, but new purported screenshots from the game give us a clearer idea.

One user on Russian social media site VK posted multiple alleged screens of the game, claiming that they had some involvement in the project. The shots look largely familiar if you've played any of the best survival games of the moment - there's a weapons wheel, crafting, resource management, multiplayer elements, and a status screen showing various debuffs and gauges for hunger, warmth, and sleep.

One mission titled 'A Falling Star' also hints at a larger storytelling focus than you'd expect, and alongside references to the Cheshire Cat, the game might have been drawing on inspiration from British fairytales and folklore to set its world apart, which sounds delightful - though, for now, at least we still have Fable to look forward to.

Odyssey was reportedly cancelled due to a rocky, prolonged development and some internal strife caused by Activision Blizzard's many scandals, with at least some former developers being moved on to "one of several promising new projects Blizzard has in the early stages of development," according to a reported internal memo from Microsoft Studios boss Matt Booty at the time. Odyssey was set to have been Blizzard's first new IP since 2016's Overwatch, though maybe that'll come in the form of the "new projects" we haven't heard about yet.

Former Dead Island and Dying Light devs announced a new “cozy survival game” without a