Work on The Elder Scrolls 6 has reportedly been heavily affected by the recent wave of Xbox layoffs, with more than 50 key employees at Bethesda Game Studios let go. The cuts have left team morale “shattered”, with fears of crunch and delays to the final game spreading throughout the studio.
That’s according to a new IGN report, with internal Bethesda staff speaking to the outlet anonymously. “Their loss will have a substantial and cascading effect on the game and morale of this studio,” IGN was told, having spoken to several workers. “It’s been a mix of every discipline: programmers, artists, and designers.” It’s said someone who’s been part of Bethesda since development on Morrowind lost their job.
All these cuts — which came as part of a wider set of Microsoft layoffs, which will eventually result in 3,200 job losses — have left staff at Bethesda Game Studios feeling at rock bottom. “We’ve all been very excited and hyped for TES 6 and this has had a crushing effect on morale. We were already running a tight ship and are worried about this delaying the game (though a final release date was not yet chosen as far as we know).”
Those of us in Rockville were inspired by the Dallas team’s vigil for those let go Monday and made our own Celebration of Service. We set it up this morning in the common area of the first floor at 9am today.
— Bethesda Game Studios Union (@bethesdaunion.bsky.social) 2026-07-08T14:38:47.899Z
To mark those who were laid off, the Bethesda Game Studios Union set up a Celebration of Service in the studio’s own common area. The HR department at Bethesda got in contact with the office manager and had it taken down “almost immediately”, according to the union.
“We’ve used common areas for many things as a team, including fan works, but HR seems to believe that a Celebration of Service is inappropriate.”
The Elder Scrolls 6 is still years away from releasing, according to recent comments from Bloomberg journalist Jason Schreier, and staff at Bethesda are concerned the cuts will only lengthen the wait for the RPG.
“There is a fear that we are going to be replaced by cheaper, contracted labour, or we will hire folks to replace them that will need to be onboarded (our tools are proprietary, other devs aren’t going to know how they work), resulting in more delays, and we’ll need to crunch to make up the time.”
As part of the change in strategy from Xbox lead Asha Sharma, the company has allowed Double Fine and Compulsion to return to being independent teams, and has sold off Ninja Theory and Undead Labs to currently unconfirmed buyers.
[source ign.com]
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