Bethesda is among the many game studios affected by the ongoing mass layoffs at Xbox, which are set to cut 3,200 jobs by the end of the 2027 fiscal year. At least 1,600 employees have already been let go, including Skyrim and Fallout veterans with decades-long careers like Christiane Meister and Ray Lederer. It apparently was a rude awakening for staff at the storied studio, who'd hoped their work on such legendary franchises would insulate them from Microsoft's cost-cutting.
"There was an impending sense of doom, and it was like, man, is it going to be us?" Anne Barrett, who worked at Bethesda Game Studios Austin, tells The Guardian. "We thought we were safe. I mean, Bethesda Games Studios is Skyrim, it’s Fallout. We have really highly anticipated stuff coming out. We thought that the work we were doing was going to keep us safe. And instead, we got brought into a meeting that was two minutes long, to end, in some cases, decades of career at the company. It was just devastating."
