Former Everwild producer Louise O'Connor has been recruited by Xbox to serve as its new chief of staff, following the cancellation of that game earlier this year.
Back in early July, Rare's Everwild was canceled and various staff members at the studio were let go as part of a wider layoff wave at parent company Microsoft. However, it looks as though O'Connor is one of the Rare staffers who's managed to escape unemployment.
According to VGC, O'Connor, who previously served as an artist and animator at Rare before overseeing Everwild as an executive producer, will now occupy the position of Xbox's chief of staff, which means she'll be overseeing the gaming division's various teams and employees.
O'Connor's career with Rare started with 2001's foul-mouthed platformer Conker's Bad Fur Day, and after that game was released, she went on to work on titles like Xbox 360 launch title Kameo: Elements of Power and 2006 life sim Viva Pinata.
Her last credit with Rare is a special thanks nod on 2020's side-scrolling beat-'em-up Battletoads, with which our reviewer Austin was particularly impressed (the game, that is, not the credit).
O'Connor also isn't the only Rare luminary to jump ship to Xbox in the last twelve months. She follows in the footsteps of former Rare boss Craig Duncan, who took the place of Xbox's Alan Hartman as the head of Xbox Game Studios back in October last year.
Unfortunately, many Rare staffers weren't as lucky as O'Connor or Duncan, with several employees losing their jobs as part of the aforementioned Microsoft employee cull, including long-time Rare veteran Gregg Mayles (again, according to VGC).
Following Everwild's cancellation, Rare currently doesn't have any active projects in development that we're aware of, although it does continue to support piratical live-service seafaring sim Sea of Thieves.
We'll have to wait and see what Rare will announce next (if anything; it may end up going the same way as Perfect Dark studio The Initiative). Stay tuned for more.
