EVERWILD LEAKED SCREENSHOTS REVEAL RARE’S CANCELED ‘WALKING GARDEN CENTRE’ FANTASY

The quiet cancellation of Rare’s mysterious and visually stunning project, Everwild, in the wake of Microsoft’s mass layoffs earlier this year, was a major blow to Xbox’s creative portfolio. Now, months after the game was officially put to rest, a set of leaked in-game screenshots has surfaced, finally giving fans a glimpse of what the protracted, and ultimately doomed, fantasy adventure game was actually shaping up to be.

The images, reportedly pulled from a former Rare artist’s portfolio, confirm long-running rumors about the game’s non-violent, nature-focused design. Far from a combat-heavy title, Everwild was positioning itself as a peaceful, vibrant life simulation and exploration game where the player’s primary role was that of a magical caretaker of the natural world.

The Inventory of an Eternal: Seeds, Figments, and Mosaics

The most telling of the leaked screenshots features the player character, known as an ‘Eternal,’ standing with their inventory menu open. This menu paints a clear picture of the game’s core loop, leaning heavily into nurturing and base building elements that suggest the player would indeed have been a kind of walking garden centre:

• Plants and Seeds: Prominently featured, these items suggest a central mechanic revolving around gardening, terraforming, and cultivating the lush, vibrant environments hinted at in earlier cinematic trailers.
• Figments: This intriguing item category shows cute, plant-like creatures, leading to speculation that they were small, collectible spirit companions. They may have functioned similarly to Pikmin or Zelda’s Koroks, acting as pint-sized helpers for farm management or magical interaction with the world.
• Mosaics: These appear to be decorative or cosmetic items, hinting at a customisation system for the player’s base or to restore ancient ruins visible in some of the landscape shots.
• Tools: Confirming the game’s third-person adventure focus on exploration and non-violent interaction, the tools would have likely been used for gathering resources, planting, and tending to the various fantastical creatures.

The overall impression is a game built around symbiotic relationships with nature and its animals, a true “druidy” adventure with elements of life simulation and environmental puzzle-solving.

Development Hell and the Cancellation Fallout

The leaked images serve as a bittersweet reminder of a game that was in development for nearly a decade, starting around 2014, and was meant to be Rare’s next original IP after Sea of Thieves. Reports suggest the project was plagued by a difficult development cycle, including a full creative reboot in 2021 after the departure of its original creative director, Simon Woodroffe, as the team struggled to define a clear gameplay structure beneath its beautiful art style.

Despite Xbox CEO Phil Spencer stating in early 2025 that the game was “making progress,” the long-term uncertainty was resolved in the most brutal fashion. Everwild was officially cancelled in July 2025 as part of a significant, company-wide wave of layoffs at Microsoft that also reportedly impacted other high-profile projects like the Perfect Dark reboot.

Industry Impact and the Cost of Consolidation

The loss of Everwild underscores a growing trend of uncertainty within the video game industry, where corporate restructuring and layoffs—even at successful studios like Rare—can end long-running creative projects. The cancellation of such a unique, non-violent title, which promised a different kind of open-world exploration experience, leaves the gaming landscape arguably “poorer for the loss of variety.”

For the video game industry and investors, news of this nature often carries a high impact, making terms like “video game cancellation”, “Rare studio projects”, and “Microsoft layoffs” keywords of significant interest, reflecting the high-stakes financial decisions behind these creative ventures.

The leaked screenshots are now the only tangible proof of the beautiful, bizarre walking garden centre game we will never get to play.