Fallout 5, The Elder Scrolls 6, Blade, and More: As Xbox Layoffs Hit Hard, What’s Going on at Bethesda?

Bethesda was hit hard by this week’s Xbox layoffs, with cuts to The Elder Scrolls and Fallout developer Bethesda Game Studios, Doom developer id Software, and The Elder Scrolls Online developer ZeniMax Online Studios, among other parts of the business.

A Maryland WARN Act notice shows 213 employees were laid off from ZOS’s office in Cockeysville, MD, and 166 from ZeniMax Media Inc. in Rockville, MD, for a total of 379. 96 staff who worked at id Software’s office in Richardson, Texas, were cut, alongside a further 40 remote roles. While it’s difficult to pin down exactly what the affected staff were working on at these studios because there are blended teams across Bethesda locations, the WARN numbers undoubtedly make for difficult reading.

The restructure at Xbox — 1,600 staff lost their jobs on Monday, with another 1,600 to go over the course of the next 12 months — has called into question the future of not just the studios Microsoft has on its books, but the quality of the games it’s working on. New Xbox CEO Asha Sharma’s strategy is clear: studios will collaborate more closely from now on, with a focus on bigger franchises such as Halo, Minecraft, Candy