While neither Zenimax nor Microsoft have made any official announcement regarding the matter, Broussard cites unnamed sources, saying that the job cuts and studio closures might go much deeper than many had previously believed.

“Getting word that layoffs at Zenimax has begun. Heard rumblings recently that the cuts may be much deeper than you expect. Buckle up!”

This means that studios like id Software, Bethesda Game Studios, and id Software are likely going to be hit by a round of layoffs as well. Whether or not there are plans for studio closures across Zenimax, however, remains unknown.

Responding to another post indicating that anyone who isn’t actively working on Elder Scrolls and Fallout projects was being cut from the company, Broussar said, “Oh, is that public now? That’s exactly what I heard a few days ago. Guess we’re about to see.”

If these layoffs have already started, employees are likely just being notified about whether or not they are being cut for the time being. Microsoft will likely continue to wait until after its current fiscal year ends on June 30th before the planned layoffs and studio closures start kicking in.

Among the studios seemingly being targeted for closure is Hellblade franchise developer Ninja Theory. A recent report indicated that Microsoft had planned to shutter the studio even before its newest project – Senua – was showcased during Xbox’s recent event. The report noted that the trailer was shown in an attempt to attract investors that might help Ninja Theory spin off into an independent studio.

Double Fine – the studio behind Kiln and Keeper – and Compulsion Games – known for South of Midnight – are also believed to be targeted for closure. However, reports have indicated that both studios, along with Ninja Theory, have begun negotiations with Microsoft to go independent rather than just being shut down.

According to recent reports, these decisions are being made according to Xbox CEO Asha Sharma’s plans to mitigate the revenue losses that have been faced by the entire division. In a recent post on Xbox Wire, Sharma, along with CCO Matt Booty, discussed the falling revenue coming in despite $20 billion being spent on investments in content, platform, and hardware subsidies. “Going forward, this cannot continue,” they wrote.

Xbox is also facing major troubles on the hardware side of things, since the recent shortages in memory and storage modules have led to the company’s expenses in making Xbox Series X/S consoles to skyrocket. While it has tried to mitigate this by raising the console’s price, the company has also notably been unable to keep store shelves stocked despite there already being a demand for the consoles.

Leading up to these layoffs, former PlayStation executive Shawn Layden has said that Xbox shows a “basic misunderstanding” of how the gaming industry works.

However, in the here and now, we celebrate a different occasion. It’s been eight years since Bethesda Game Studios revealed that The Elder Scrolls 6 was in development. Almost seven years after the release of Skyrim, the next chapter in the epic fantasy RPG series was finally upon us. That one teaser would be dissected for a good long while, as fans theorized and opined. Will we finally venture to Hammerfell? Maybe Highrock? Perhaps both or somewhere else entirely?

Eight years later, let’s check in on what XBOX chief content officer Matt Booty had to say about the game to Variety.

“Having visited Bethesda and sat with Todd and seen ‘Elder Scrolls‘ playing, it looks amazing, and it’s coming along well. And we’ll make sure to announce it and really reveal it at the right time.”

Now, there’s more context to be had from his overall answer. Before this, Booty said that, “One of the more challenging balancing acts of someone in a job like mine is balancing that you want to go show the world all the cool stuff you’re working on, and you want to get them excited early, but we also know that we want to wait till the right moment. And when you decide to show it, you want it to be the best you’ve got. And also that when you show the game, you’re also giving them a promise of, hey, it’s coming soon.”

That is all understandable and realistic on the surface, but it also discounts the fact that it was announced eight years ago. Eight years later, we still don’t know the official name. We haven’t seen any gameplay or learned when it’s releasing. Remember when former Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer said it was likely five-plus years away back in June 2023? More than halfway past that mark, and it’s looking like it could be another five years.

Where the hell is The Elder Scrolls 6? Why is it taking so long?

We’d be remiss not to mention that Bethesda has been busy with other things, like re-releasing Fallout 4 and Skyrim, and breaking their mods for the community. Or Starfield, which itself took an eye-watering eight years to develop, meaning it was in the works when the studio was busy wrapping up Fallout 4. Granted, it ultimately removed a lot in terms of combat and weapon options, but I digress. We’ve certainly dogpiled enough on Todd Howard’s radical space adventure for a good long while.

So what is happening with The Elder Scrolls 6? Well, Howard said last December that it’s “progressing really well,” though he wishes it could go faster (yes, this was last December). It definitely has more trees than Skyrim, which was confirmed a few days later. And before that in November, he revealed that it was still a long way off, though it passed the “quite playable milestone” in July 2025.

There has been more recent information, from the team confirming that it’s developed on Creation Engine 3 and that they’re “happy where it’s headed,” and that the “majority of this building” – referring to Bethesda’s HQ in Maryland – is working on it. But on the other hand, Howard is now only half-joking that you should “pretend that we didn’t announce it.”

Which is funny because if you go back to what former SVP of marketing Pete Hines said in 2018, the announcement was made (alongside Starfield) for the sake of transparency. Why would they need that, effectively defusing any “hysteria” around what was next? Well, because Bethesda had Fallout 76 coming up and it didn’t want fans thinking that it was just working on multiplayer games.

Yes, that’s really it.

All that aside, however, Howard and the rest of the development team have made it clear that they want to take their time with the game. When factoring in the new management at XBOX and their recent moves, there’s probably an incentive to present this as a major exclusive somewhere down the line. It may even have looked at Starfield and decided that Bethesda needs to move beyond it, delivering something comparable to its best work.

All of that is a noble endeavor indeed, but unless Creation Engine 3 is a massive leap over its predecessor, which is what Starfield is built on, more time spent means more risks of Bethesda’s design and technology becoming outdated. Look at Fallout 4 and how it felt archaic next to games like The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt.

It’s also been made clear that Bethesda is operating with a different set of expectations. While immersion definitely formed much of Skyrim’s appeal, it was also several side quests and the overall world that helped it stand out. The studio’s writing has only gotten worse over the past eight years – the jury’s out on whether The Elder Scrolls 6 will really change that. So can Creation Engine 3 really carry the series forward in terms of gameplay or world design?

This probably isn’t even a question of the engine but what the developer wants to achieve. After all, Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 offers a pretty immersive experience with branching quests and extensive depth on CryEngine. Fable offers 1,000 handcrafted NPCs and some pretty deep interactions with its Reputation system (based on what we’ve seen thus far). Crimson Desert has already showcased that you can have a world much larger than Skyrim with a strong amount of reactive elements while delivering higher visual fidelity, better combat, and a wider variety of side activities. And lest we forget, that began development in 2018. Add another one to the list, to say nothing of the incredible turnaround of fixes, changes, improvements and new features in just three months. How long did it take for Starfield “Not 2.0” to happen again?

Of course, as always, Bethesda is going to do what it wants to do, which is fully reveal The Elder Scrolls 6 several months out from release. This would be fine if it followed the Fallout 4 or even the Fallout 76 marketing cycle. Instead, due to some half-baked plan to keep its fans from panicking, it’s created an unfathomable set of expectations on top of what’s already there. And while it could – and should – focus on the essence of The Elder Scrolls, and deliver an unforgettable experience – one that fans will play for over a decade, as Howard hopes – it can’t ignore them entirely.

Sure, it’ll still sell millions of copies, and notch up an impressive 20 million or so Game Pass players (not necessarily in that order). But maybe Bethesda needs to change things up, and let fans in on the ground floor sooner. If not for the sake of keeping them in the loop and restoring some goodwill, then to simply gauge feedback on whether it’s going in the right direction.

Or it could just subsist in this no-win situation and try, as always, to do better with Fallout 5 or whatever else is next. And thus, the cycle repeats.

Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, GamingBolt as an organization.

Speaking to XBOX chief content officer Matt Booty, Variety asked how he dealt with excitement for a potential appearance alongside the disappointment? “I would say one of the more challenging balancing acts of someone in a job like mine is balancing that you want to go show the world all the cool stuff you’re working on, and you want to get them excited early, but we also know that we want to wait till the right moment,” he said.

“And when you decide to show it, you want it to be the best you’ve got. And also that when you show the game, you’re also giving them a promise of, hey, it’s coming soon. So I can tell you, having visited Bethesda and sat with Todd and seen ‘Elder Scrolls‘ playing, it looks amazing, and it’s coming along well. And we’ll make sure to announce it and really reveal it at the right time.”

The Elder Scrolls 6 is developed on Creation Engine 3, with director Todd Howard stating the “majority of this building”, referring to Bethesda’s HQ, is working on it. He spoke last December about how it’s “progressing really well,” though once again, there’s been no indication for when it could be revealed. If anything, Howard would prefer fans pretend that Bethesda didn’t even announce it in the first place.

The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion Remastered helped take some of the edge off when it launched last year, but the lack of post-launch support and lingering issues have left a sour taste in fans’ mouths. Remasters for Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas are allegedly in the works, but they’re seemingly a ways off.

So for now, all that’s really left to do is wait and watch the Bethesda logo appear at a showcase, and hope.

On The Xbox Two podcast with Rand al Thor, the duo discussed newly appointed XBOX chief strategy officer Matthew Ball and his statement about reviving “storied” franchises. When the former said this might mean Fallout, Corden responded, “I’ve heard that like, I don’t know how true this is, but one thing I heard is Fallout remasters are probably a little bit further off than people think, and The Elder Scrolls 6 is still quite far away. I suppose that getting some of those games out more quickly is probably something they’re probably very thinking is top of mind for them.”

Both believe that the alleged Fallout remasters could arrive starting next year, if not “at least one of them.” Corden went a step further, theorizing that perhaps The Elder Scrolls 6 could launch in 2028 or even 2029. At this point, launching any time before the decade is up would be a miracle.

Bethesda’s Todd Howard has said on more than one occasion that multiple Fallout projects are in the works, and that Fallout 5 would eventually have its time. Whether that includes Fallout 3 Remastered remains unknown, but rumors claim it’s aiming for the same level of polish as The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion Remastered (hopefully with better post-launch support).

As for The Elder Scrolls 6, Howard said last March that the “majority of this building” (referring to Bethesda) was working on the title. It’s developed on Creation Engine 3, and the team is “happy where it’s headed”, but sit tight because the team is taking its sweet time with it.

Aaron Paul, whom you might know from Breaking Bad and Westworld, is going to be the new face joining the show’s next season, although details about his character and role in the narrative are yet to be disclosed. Deadline has also reported on a couple of Annabel O’Hagan, whose take on Steph was an absolute treat, and Dave Register, who brought the childlike Chet to life, becoming regulars in the new season. They’ll definitely be welcome additions, especially considering everything thus far.

It remains to be seen if Paul’s presence in the third season is going to produce any interesting effects like the second potentially has. Regardless, we’re definitely eager to see where the writers take us after all the shenanigans we’ve already been privy to.

Of course, this is far from the end for the successful TV show, especially with actor Aaron Morten (Maximus) claiming it would last for five to six seasons.

The announcement comes hot on the heels of a lot of players reporting crashes and being quite vocal with their dissatisfaction. It’s quite understandable given how highly anticipated this space sci-fi RPG was after a successful run on PC and Xbox. Unfortunately, this doesn’t address other issues that players have been having, and the wait for a fix on the PS5 is sure to be excruciating to those who can’t wait to begin exploring the Settled Systems. Still, this first effort is a step in the right direction.

Responses to the tweet announcing the hotfix’s release showcase a lot of players continuing to experience issues, a situation that the studio is going to want to remedy sooner rather than later. That’s especially true if it aims to sustain the hype for its rumored Switch 2 port of the game, although an official announcement is yet to make itself known.

You can check out the announcement and the responses to it if you want a front row seat to what’s unfolding. You can also check out our review of the PS5 version here.

https://x.com/BethesdaStudios/status/2044782858397462777

While neither Bethesda nor Microsoft has made any official announcement about the matter, the fact that the Switch 2 port is already getting rated means that development must be close to complete, if not done already. The rating also indicates that the game coming to a new platform is a matter of “when” rather than “if”.

It is worth noting that Starfield‘s PS5 launch has been far from a smooth journey for Bethesda. Many players took to Reddit to report experiencing frequent crashes during their time with the game. The reports also indicated that it didn’t matter whether the RPG was being played on the base PS5 or the PS5 Pro, which indicates that these issues have little to do with the console’s horsepower. To address this, however, Bethesda has confirmed that it is working on fixing these issues.

“We’re aware of some reported PS5 crashing issues and have narrowed them down to a small number of causes,” wrote the company on social media. “We’re addressing these in a hotfix we’re aiming to release this week. Thanks for flagging, and we’ll keep you posted.”

On the other hand, other players have reported having no issues during their time with Starfield. Our own review called the port a good one, giving it a score of 9 out of 10, only held back by the fact that the Free Lanes update wasn’t as comprehensive as we had hoped.

In the meantime, director Todd Howard has spoken about the divisive initial reception to Starfield, and noted that Bethesda’s other two major franchises – The Elder Scrolls and Fallout – were also quite divisive before eventually finding their audiences.

“If you look back at the beginning of Elder Scrolls, beginning of Fallout, they’re a little bit the same,” said Howard. “And then, you find an audience that loves that. So, I think it’s true that Fallout 76 and Starfield clearly – they’re creatively different than what we had done [before].”

“And we really wanted to do that. When you’re doing a certain type of thing for, in my case, 20 years, we want to try some other things and learn from that. We have ideas that we want to get out there.”

Howard has also discussed the strange way Bethesda decided to implement New Game+ through Starfield‘s Unity ending, which he called a way for him to ask players a “weird, deep question”.

“The Unity was our way of doing New Game+,” Howard explained. “It was us asking you this weird, deep question that I actually think got lost on a lot of people. It asks if you are just this power gamer who wants to get everything, or are you willing to leave this world behind? How do you feel about your own life choices – would you leave that all behind and start over? Some of that pain – having to give up all of your stuff, Sarah Morgan not loving you anymore, and so on – is supposed to make you feel all of that.”

Starfield is available on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S.

“If you look back at the beginning of Elder Scrolls, beginning of Fallout, they’re a little bit the same,” said Howard. “And then, you find an audience that loves that. So, I think it’s true that Fallout 76 and Starfield clearly – they’re creatively different than what we had done [before].”

“And we really wanted to do that. When you’re doing a certain type of thing for, in my case, 20 years, we want to try some other things and learn from that. We have ideas that we want to get out there.”

Ultimately, Howard said that he is glad that Fallout and The Elder Scrolls managed to garner massive audiences, which in turn has allowed Bethesda to take more creative risks with its other projects, like Fallout 76, and most recently, Starfield. He said, “We’re fortunate those games have found, in the scheme of things, giant audiences that let us keep doing things in them.”

Referring to Fallout 76 and Starfield, Howard said, “even though they’re a bit off the core path of the single-player games that we have been doing, we’re just fortunate to have the success that we’ve had with them.”

When it comes to Fallout, it is worth noting that Bethesda only bought up the franchise back in 2004. Before this, the franchise was developed by Interplay Entertainment. Bethesda’s work on the series started with Fallout 3, which came out on PC, PS3, and Xbox 360 in 2008. At the time, it offered a massive shift away from what the series was known for, switching from turn-based combat with an isometric view to a first-person RPG with shooter-adjacent gameplay. At this point, however, Bethesda has been in charge of the Fallout IP for longer than Interplay ever was.

Recently, Howard also revealed some details about the unique Unity ending of Starfield, and how it leads directly into New Game+ mode. Originally, players who picked the ending would get thrown into a new universe with all of their power and progression, but without any of their gear or items. With the Free Lanes update, players now have the chance to create an item that allows them to take up to 50 items along with them in their New Game+ run after the Unity ending.

“The Unity was our way of doing New Game+,” Howard explained. “It was us asking you this weird, deep question that I actually think got lost on a lot of people. It asks if you are just this power gamer who wants to get everything, or are you willing to leave this world behind? How do you feel about your own life choices – would you leave that all behind and start over? Some of that pain – having to give up all of your stuff, Sarah Morgan not loving you anymore, and so on – is supposed to make you feel all of that.”

Starfield is available on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S. For more details, check out our review of its recent PS5 release. In the meantime, Bethesda is also working on The Elder Scrolls 6.

Major spoilers for Starfield‘s ending below.

As you get to the end of the main story of Starfield, the story mission One Giant Leap presents you with a choice of partaking in the Unity. Doing so turns the player’s character into a Starborn and puts you in an entirely new universe. Through this choice, the studio integrated the idea of New Game+ into the overall narrative of Starfield, since players got to carry over all of the progress they had made throughout the story, while also “resetting” the universe around them, allowing players to start from scratch with things like character relationships, mission progression, and map data, among other things.

“The Unity was our way of doing New Game+,” Howard explained. “It was us asking you this weird, deep question that I actually think got lost on a lot of people. It asks if you are just this power gamer who wants to get everything, or are you willing to leave this world behind? How do you feel about your own life choices – would you leave that all behind and start over? Some of that pain – having to give up all of your stuff, Sarah Morgan not loving you anymore, and so on – is supposed to make you feel all of that.”

On the subject of why the studio decided to go this route with its New Game+ system, Lamb explained that feedback from playtesters led to this, since they wanted to continue their journey. “The game just ended,” he said. “The feedback we got at the time was that fans were surprised – they wanted to keep going. So we put this system into Starfield; we wanted it to be a meaningful choice, but it wasn’t meant to be suffering.”

With the release of the free Free Lanes update, Bethesda has also brought in a major change to Starfield‘s Unity ending and the subsequent New Game+ mode; players can now build a machine that allows them to bring over up to 50 items into the new universe. “If you decide to enter the Unity now, you can do it in a way that you feel that you can still continue your character and have some of your stuff – it’s stuff that you earned, after all,” explained Howard.

Interestingly, the introduction of X-Tech as a way to further raise the power of players’ weapons and equipment may have played a role in allowing players to build this device. Since players would likely be unhappy about leaving behind powerful items that they may have worked hard for, the studio decided that there should be a way to carry these items forward.

“We are introducing X-Tech to further upgrade your weapons and your gear; well, we don’t want to ask the player to put in a lot of work for a reward they are searching for, only to say, ‘no, it’s gone now.’ So once these things started coming together, we knew we absolutely had to do something like this,” said Lamb.

Howard went on to explain how, through this change to the Unity ending, Bethesda wants to further refine the “elder loop” of Starfield. This “elder loop” is essentially the long-term gameplay loop offered by Starfield, which would often involve players hopping on and off between extended periods of time. To help with this, the Free Lanes update was meant to add more game content that would give players plenty more to do aside from just the new missions.

“Take something like the Trackers Alliance, or other quests. You do them and then you’re done,” said Howard. “That’s still rewarding, but for someone who jumps back in, they might play for a few hours – and then the update didn’t serve them beyond those two or three hours. We want to be trying to do more things that update the game where it’s going to change the next 100 hours. You can tell us if we’re done our job right.”

Starfield is out on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S. For more details, take a look at our review of the PS5 release, as well as its Terran Armada expansion.

While there was a sense that the development team was truly attempting something different and grandiose, attempting to recreate the vastness of space, emptiness and all, the biggest problem is how it effectively fractured Bethesda’s built-in audience. Those who “got it” could vibe with the exploration, the mood, and the sheer scale of it all. Others wanted something more akin to Skyrim or, at the very least, Fallout, which it became very clear this was not.

Updates came and went. Shattered Space gave even the most dedicated fans second-hand embarrassment (and that’s despite having some really good dungeons). Then there was the great emptiness of 2025, where Bethesda promised big things, and ultimately kept its head down to work on the future. Well, the future is now, and the now is Free Lanes. So is Starfield “fixed” so to speak?

Not exactly, and really, you should have seen that response coming when Todd Howard himself said not to call it Starfield 2.0. Todd Howard not talking a game up through the stratosphere? A cold day for sure.

But he’s not wrong. Free Lanes is a massive pass at all the different systems and mechanics within Starfield, expanding on them in ways that befit the originally hyped up space-faring fantasy. It’s not so much about giving players something to do as offering more experiences in this vast universe. Because while space can be boring and empty, that doesn’t necessarily mean that Bethesda’s take has to be the same.

That’s best reflected in Cruise Mode, which more facilitates the self-titled Free Lanes themselves. Before, players would endure a loading screen to travel from planet to planet, even those within the same system. Then another loading screen to land on said planet, and another to leave. And while everyone focused on the loading screens – for good reason, because so many in quick succession really hurt the pacing – it was really the lack of stuff to do in space that really grinded many players’ gears. It’s not about getting lucky and finding something, be it an NPC or a space battle – it was more than life in space just felt non-existent.

Cruise Mode addresses that immediately by allowing you to travel, manually, between planets in a star system. Right away, your ship isn’t just some box that gets you from point A to point B – it’s now a second home. Get up, stretch your virtual legs, talk to some crew members, and maybe go and improve your ship with the new X-Tech. Or reroll perks on your Legendary weapons while working towards the new Rank 4s.

That space itself has new points of interest that can feed into that gameplay loop, which is all the more incredible. Maybe you’ll find a quaint bit of wreckage one second and engage in a dog fight against ships in another. Sometimes those dogfights will pull you out of Cruise Mode, forcing a scramble. Then there are the new Incursions added via the Terran Armada DLC, which provide another noteworthy activity to grind out (and earn some new weapons).

Of course, Bethesda didn’t stop there. It addressed one of the biggest complaints with Starfield by adding more PoI variety on its planets. Granted, this is one of those features where I would scoff and assume that it added, say, a dozen or so. However, based on feedback from the community, the variety has shot up. One player on Reddit, who would usually encounter the same point of interest pre-update, played for three hours straight, going through 30 unique types without ever encountering the same one twice. And that’s even after attempting to force them to appear. It doesn’t necessarily mean all of them are brand new – just that on top of the additions, you’re less likely to find the same PoI as quickly.

Because these locations – and dungeons – can provide X-Tech, you’re more incentivized than ever to explore random planets. There’s a constantly rewarding gameplay loop that also feeds into the main purpose of Starfield – to explore, both in space and on planets. The best part is that you’re not just juicing those Legendaries for no reason, as new enemy modifiers are in place for those who want more spice to their encounters. Sure, you could always increase enemy health and damage, but this kind of ARPG-level of buffs to otherwise familiar threats is a better way to make combat feel fresh.

Then you have the new ship modules, updates to outposts that allow for quickly plopping down a habitat module, fully furnished, and a shared storage for all your bases, a database so you can actually track down different resources and keep tabs on your outposts – the list goes on. If you’ve amassed tons of Credits, great news – you can now buy an asteroid base. That’s not even getting into all the non-DLC quests or Anchor Point Station, where you can find them (and various new characters).

So it’s less that Free Lanes – and by extension, Terran Armada – have “fixed” Starfield so much as leaned much further into Bethesda’s vision for the game. It already had this massive universe that players could explore – there was just very little reason to do so after a point, besides taking in the atmosphere. With these changes, it’s certainly catering to those who already poured dozens of hours into the game, giving them new stuff to play with while also fixing glaring issues like the loot from Expert and Master level locks, or bugs with various quests.

I think it goes even further, though, addressing a problem that even new players noticed at a mid-way point – namely, a drive. Because for all the hundreds of planets that you could explore, spaceships to build, abandoned locations to clear out, and quests to complete, being driven to really delve deeper into this sandbox, appreciating its nuances and joys, became difficult.

Free Lanes isn’t so much a giant leap for Starfield, so much as dozens upon dozens of significant little steps. And quite frankly, that’s what this game needed. More complexity that ties into what’s already there. More depth. More reasons to get out and see what the universe has to offer. Something to sink your teeth into beyond all the surface-level trifles and grinds.

That’s probably why Bethesda didn’t agree with the 2.0 label (even if it’s not shy to call this the best version of the game yet). As lead creative producer Tim Lamb notes, “There’s a narrative baked into what that label would mean.” Instead, the team examined “several systems where we had interest or had heard things from the community, and we tried to level up a number of them.” As such, a “number of systems have been made incrementally better,” there’s a “ton of content,” and there are “things that the team is excited about.”

Will those “things” make Starfield as vaunted as Skyrim or even Oblivion? No one can say at this point, but if No Man’s Sky, Cyberpunk 2077, The Division 2, and many more have taught us anything, it’s that fantastic experiences are often built brick by bloody brick. Here’s hoping for several more of the nice kind for Bethesda.

Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, GamingBolt as an organization.