Elder Scrolls Online director still secretly plays the MMO, even after he left the studio when Microsoft killed his dream game: "I'm in guilds, and they don't know who I am"

Zenimax Online founder and Elder Scrolls Online director Matt Firor left the studio in 2025, confirming months later that his departure was a direct result of Microsoft's cancelling his dream MMO, Project Blackbird. You might think that colors his feelings about ESO, but no – it's apparently still one of his favorite games, and he's continuing to play it to this day, even as his guildmates have no idea who he is.

"I did take two or three months off just to get away mentally, but I started playing again," Firor says in a new interview with MinnMax. He says he's quite enjoying experiencing the game purely as a player rather than a developer, since he no longer needs to jump into Slack to report every bug he sees when playing on live servers.

"I don't have that anymore," Firor says. "and not having that is actually very freeing, because I can actually just concentrate on the game and not on the problems. It's such a different mindset just to jump in. I'm in guilds, and they don't know who I am. So I just play and it's a lot of fun. I'm having the best time since probably 2017 or 2018 in the game right now."

Firor is perfectly willing to acknowledge the irony of hyping up his own game even when he's no longer responsible for it. "I was on a podcast last year where they wanted me to name my five favorite games," Firor says, "and I named ESO. I actually semi-apologized for it in the podcast because it's such a loser move nominating your own game for your favorite game. But it is. It's a really, really good game. And I've spent so much of my life building it and living in it that I appreciate it for what it is even today."

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He admits that he still texts the devs who remain at the ESO studio about the game on occasion, "but I do it a lot less than I used to." Even now, he's still seeing some of the fruits of his own labours, since it takes "probably up to 12 to 16 months to make content in ESO. So they're still shipping stuff that I knew about, that I knew was coming and I was involved in the planning with. But they've changed it in subtle ways that I think is fantastic and really smart."

It's easy to understand why Firor feels so strongly about Elder Scrolls Online – after all, he founded Zenimax Online way back in 2007 and spent 18 years with the company, shepherding ESO through its early development and a rocky launch as it eventually became one of the most successful modern MMOs. That's a substantial chunk of a lifetime to devote to one game, and it's clear Firor takes pride in that game's success.

It's also pretty obvious why somebody who takes so much pride in their work might be so distressed about having their dream project killed. "Project Blackbird was the game I had waited my entire career to create," Firor said at the time, "and having it canceled led to my resignation." At least he still has ESO.

Elder Scrolls Online is still one of the best MMOs you can play today.