Remember Everwild, that mysterious next game from Sea of Thieves developer Rare? Phil Spencer certainly does, and is here to make sure we know that yes, it’s still in the works
There’s not been a proper update for Everwild pretty much since it was revealed, but in a recent interview Xbox head Phil Spencer did offer a little update.
It’s been more than five years since Sea of Thieves developer Rare announced its next game, Everwild, a curious, pretty-looking title that hasn’t had an actual official update since about 2020. A report from 2021 claimed that development on the project had been completely restarted, and that it was aiming for a 2024 release date, but as you can see, that hasn’t materialised. So, where’s the project at now? It’s still a bit unclear, but speaking in an interview on the Xbox Era podcast, Xbox head Phil Spencer did at least briefly touch on it after being asked to name the currently in-development games he’s most excited to.
“I’ll go back to what I said earlier. Yeah, State of Decay is just one of the franchises I love back from the original one, so that one stays on the board,” Spencer responded. “I do think the work that Double Fine’s doing and how Tim kind of solicits feedback from the team. And the other one, I’ll say because I was recently out at Rare. It’s nice to see the team with Everwild and the progress that they’re making.”
When one of the hosts of Xbox Era noted that it’s been a while since we’ve heard about Everwild, Spencer noted that it “has been. 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. It’s like a dream that Matt (Booty) and I have had for a long time, so it’s finally good to be there. We can give those teams time.”
Whether we’ll actually see anything concrete any time soon is still up in there air, but let’s just hope that Spencer and co really are giving Rare the time that it needs, and not just saying that for brownie points.
As part of the same interview, Spencer also spoke once again about Xbox’s move towards multiplatform, and how he wants to “just allow more people to play” its games.