(Image credit: Getty Images) Microsoft's brutal rash of layoffs and studio closures after the acquisition of Activision Blizzard for $68.4 billion is something of a grave marker in the industry, sweeping promising projects under the rug. One of those was Project Blackbird, an MMO by Elder Scrolls Online developers Zenimax Online Studios, which had been in production since 2018 . It also saw the departure of Matt Firor , founder of ZoS and director of the very same MMO. In a recent interview with MinnMax , Firor was asked about how he feels nearly one year on: "I think it's a missed opportunity for me, for ZoS, for Bethesda, for Xbox, I think it would've been a fantastic game." Article continues below Earlier in the interview, Firor says the idea with Blackbird was always to build for the future—frontloading costs on systems that would make maintenance and development easier down the line. This is unpopular in the age of shareholders.…