Bethesda workers say annual layoffs have become a troubling new normal since Microsoft acquired the studio. Union protests warn that every round of cuts removes not only jobs, but years of accumulated development knowledge.

Microsoft brought ZeniMax Media and Bethesda under its roof in 2021 through a deal worth more than $7.5 billion. Many employees expected the acquisition to provide long-term stability, yet workers now describe what used to be a rare event as a threat that returns every year.

Bethesda artist Alex Nguyen told Kotaku that the damage cannot be measured by headcount alone. When the five people who understand a particular system are all dismissed, the remaining team may spend months or years rebuilding the same expertise while morale and development speed deteriorate.

“Before the acquisition we did not really have layoffs, and now we have them every year,” Nguyen summarized.

He argued that games such as Fallout 76 and The Elder Scrolls Online might never have received the time they needed to recover and succeed under today’s conditions. Both projects depended on patient long-term support and on retaining the collective knowledge of their teams.

The CWA and OneBGS unions have joined Save Our Devs protests across the United States, Canada and Twitch. The tension became especially visible when a giant inflatable rat appeared outside ZeniMax on the day Xbox leadership arrived for a demonstration of The Elder Scrolls VI.

Source: 3DJuegos