{"id":85430,"date":"2026-07-06T15:47:20","date_gmt":"2026-07-06T19:47:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/?p=85430"},"modified":"2026-07-06T18:37:49","modified_gmt":"2026-07-06T22:37:49","slug":"the-elder-scrolls-online-has-reportedly-lost-as-much-as-half-of-its-development-team-as-its-roadmap-is-being-re-evaluated","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/?p=85430","title":{"rendered":"The Elder Scrolls Online Has Reportedly Lost &#8216;As Much as Half&#8217; of Its Development Team as Its Roadmap Is Being Re-Evaluated"},"content":{"rendered":"<section data-transform=\"mobile-ad-break\">\n<p>&#8220;As much as half&#8221; of the team working on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ign.com\/games\/the-elder-scrolls-online\">The Elder Scrolls Online<\/a> has been laid off, <a href=\"https:\/\/kotaku.com\/elder-scrolls-online-team-seemingly-halved-xbox-layoffs-2000712920\">according to a report from Kotaku<\/a>, leading many to wonder how the game will continue.<\/p>\n<p>Earlier today, Microsoft began carrying out its &#8220;reset&#8221; of the Xbox brand by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ign.com\/articles\/xbox-boss-asha-sharma-announces-3200-layoffs-including-1600-today-with-4-studios-leaving-for-new-management-read-the-email-to-staff-in-full\">laying off thousands of employees<\/a>. Although no studios are shutting down, many are being offloaded from Xbox and being sold to other companies or given the chance to go independent. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ign.com\/articles\/fans-mourn-starfield-amid-xbox-layoffs-with-bethesda-now-seemingly-focused-on-fallout-elder-scrolls-wolfenstein-doom-and-quake\">Bethesda is also expected to focus on a small handful of franchises<\/a>, such as Fallout and The Elder Scrolls, going forward. <\/p>\n<p>Unfortunately, one of the studios hit the hardest by the rest appears to be ZeniMax Online Studios, though the total number of those impacted is unknown. This isn&#8217;t the first time this has happened, as Xbox hit ZOS hard last year and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ign.com\/articles\/former-zenimax-online-founder-confirms-he-resigned-because-xbox-killed-project-blackbird\">canceled a sci-fi MMO at the studio<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Kotaku reported that sources from ZeniMax have expressed uncertainty on how The Elder Scrolls Online could continue on after such a massive blow. The team seems to be reckoning with this publicly, as community manager Jessica Folsom took to the ESO forums to tell players that the game&#8217;s roadmap is &#8220;shifting&#8221; and they will need time<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;As much as half&#8221; of the team working on The Elder Scrolls Online has been laid off, according to a report from Kotaku, leading many to wonder how the game will continue. Earlier today, Microsoft began carrying out its &#8220;reset&#8221; of the Xbox brand by laying off thousands of employees. Although no studios are shutting&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":194,"featured_media":85432,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-85430","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-external"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85430"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/194"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=85430"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85430\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":85434,"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85430\/revisions\/85434"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/85432"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=85430"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=85430"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=85430"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}