Everwild: Everything we know about the canceled Rare game

Everwild has been canceled. The upcoming adventure was in development at Rare, the studio behind Sea of Thieves. This news emerged on July 2, 2025, following sweeping layoffs across Microsoft. While it remains unclear how much this 4% reduction in headcount has impacted the gaming division, a leaked memo from Xbox Game Studios president Matt Booty confirmed that production of Everwild has ended prematurely.

Everwild was announced back in 2019, although it is thought to have been in development for far longer. Despite it being six years since its reveal, there have been precious few details released – as well as reports suggesting that it underwent a full production reset in 2021. Still, it remained one of the most anticipated upcoming Xbox Series X games.

With news of the Everwild cancelation, it means we'll never see what Rare's adventure could have been. Still, you can keep reading to find everything we knew about Everwild below.

Everwild canceled

Everwild was canceled on July 2, 2025. The upcoming adventure game was also never given a formal release date, despite being announced during the XO19 event back in November of 2019.

After years with no updates, in February 2025, Xbox boss Phil Spencer gave us some news while speaking on the Xbox Era podcast (spotted by VGC). "It's nice to see the team with Everwild and the progress that they're making," he says. "It has been [a while]. And we've been able to give those teams time in what they're doing, which is good, and still have a portfolio like we have," he said. "It's like a dream that Matt [Booty, head of Xbox Game Studios] and I have had for a long time, so it's finally good to be there. We can give those teams time."

Sadly, Rare ran out of time. With Everwild development canceled, it's likely that we'll ever truly know what sort of game the Sea of Thieves studio was cooking up.

Everwild platforms

Everwild would have been released for Xbox Series X and PC, and have landed day-one in the Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscription service. The game was never confirmed for release on PS5 or Switch 2.

Everwild story - Eternals, mystical creatures, and symbiotic relationships

Like a lot of things about Everwild, the game's story was vague, but equally intriguing. The devs at Rare provided a commentary track for the Xbox Game Showcase 2020 trailer, confirming a number of key details about the world's lore and creatures.

First and foremost, we knew that the player characters in Everwild were known as Eternals, and they looked like fairly standard adventuring humans. The creatures you'd have interacted with, on the other hand, range from slightly unusual to downright bizarre.

We didn't end up seeing any actual Everwild combat from Rare, though, as the studio had been focusing on the peaceful interactions players will have with the various creatures. Rare even described the connection with Everwild's animals as "symbiotic," and we see some of those moments in the trailer. Obviously, that doesn't tell us everything we wanted to know about Everwild's story, but it did suggest themes around nature and our connection to the land and its inhabitants would have be at the heart of the experience.

Everwild X019 trailer

You can check out the Everwild trailer above. The trailer introduced us to a bustling fantasy world with a rich color palette. It's also full of intriguing creatures, from bunnies to deer and majestic birds. There seems to be some sort of supernatural spin on the creatures, who boast leafy appendages and huddle in packs across a series of peculiar biomes.

The humans who inhabit this land (whom we assume will function as the protagonists in Everwild) always appear in awe of these creatures as if they are completely subservient to them. The human characters lurk and spy on the various creatures, with some looking far more hostile than others, like the warthog and sabretooth tiger featured in the trailer.

Everwild gameplay 

It's difficult to infer what the gameplay of Everwild would have been like from this trailer. There's no conflict to be seen, though it suggests that there will be some sort of multiplayer element given that the humans move in groups whilst studying these animals. At the end of the trailer, one human character connects with an animal, resulting in some kind of magical awakening. Perhaps it would have been a game following an early civilization as they figure out the meaning behind the animals who inhabit the land they find themselves in.

Studio Head Craig Duncan kept his cards to his chest in an interview with Eurogamer around the time of Everwild's reveal, where he called it a "very unique type of game," and explained the philosophy at Rare that led to the game's creation. Duncan notes that it's about "putting a set of passionate people together making something they truly love and believe in. That's why Everwild will be the game it will be."

He was similarly cryptic in a blog post on the Rare website shortly after, where Duncan stated that the game is "still in early development" but that the team is "focused on building an experience that allows for new ways to play in a natural and magical world." According to Duncan, Everwild will be "more than just a new IP," and he later waxes about the fact that the meaningful experiences it offers will be "for players everywhere to share."

In October 2024, Xbox head Phil Spencer paid a visit to Rare and played Everwild - at the time, he didn't elaborate too much, but many took this as a promising sign. Sadly, though, news surfaced on July 2, 2025 that the project has been officially cancelled.

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