Barrett also went on to note that this sense of security eventually made Xbox’s announcements even more surprising. Unfortunately, this also led to a massive drop in morale across the workforce.

“There was an impending sense of doom, and it was like, man, is it going to be us? 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.”

“I remember, I laughed the whole day because I was in complete disbelief. I was like, there’s no way they’re doing this. That’s how I processed it. Some of my co-workers were just devastated. I mean, breaking down. They did not understand what was going on. We had people who were just in really dark places. I think it hit me probably the next day. I felt like, wow – I just spent seven years doing all this. In college, people called me Bethesda because it was my dream to work here. And that was just … gone.”

Looking forward, Barrett also expressed some concern about Bethesda’s future, since while the layoffs didn’t hit the sheer amount of the workforce at the studio as they did in other Xbox teams, many key people were let go due to the decision. This, she said, has led to a loss of institutional knowledge that was vital in working with the company’s proprietary game engine.

“I don’t know how you create games at the quality level we were without the institutional knowledge that’s been lost. We have proprietary tech. Our titles have a very well-known visual identity. And when you lose the people who built the tech, when you lose the people who were improving it, you can’t just throw new people at that problem, right? You can’t replace an artist with someone brand new and say: ‘Now replicate what they were doing 15, 20 years ago.’ The company has said that they can do it. I disagree.”

She went on to note that, “My view of the industry has definitely been damaged. There’s been a loss of sight over why AAA games were so valuable to players. It wasn’t just that they were big and shiny. It was that [the studios] had the resources to invest in creativity. What I see now is the same formula over and over and over again. In any entertainment industry, if you do that enough times, people get tired of it. I would love for us as an industry to get back to actually being creative and investing in that creativity.”

Previously, employees had also spoken about how layoffs were quite rare at Bethesda before the company got acquired by Microsoft. Following this, the practice seems to have become a yearly thing.

“We are increasingly going to be one of the largest platforms in the world. Every platform needs some form of exclusive experiences and content. And so, what we’ve shared is Gears [of War: E-Day] and Clockwork [Revolution]. We’re going to do the best we can to continue to do that, all in context of the business being healthy, and so we have to balance that,” she told the BBC at Gamescom.

Of course, when asked if The Elder Scrolls 6 being Xbox console-exclusive was a “priority,” she simply replied, “It’s a beautiful game.”

While Sharma has famously talked about how fluid plans are for Xbox since becoming CEO, the division seems quite set on its current exclusivity stance. Chief strategist Matthew Ball said it’s only getting started with exclusives; Sharma later added that more will be added as the business gets “healthier.” The commitment is such that Ball later denied rumors that Xbox was reversing course.

You might think that it’s following Sony’s recent stance of keeping single-player titles on its console while releasing live-service efforts for other platforms like PC. However, chief content officer Matt Booty said that fans shouldn’t “overly fixate” on single-player titles alone.

While The Elder Scrolls 6 doesn’t have a release date (or much else beyond the 2018 announcement trailer), Bethesda recently noted that it remains the “primary development focus” and that layoffs haven’t affected development. When visiting the developer’s offices (amid ongoing protests by laid-off workers), Sharma received a first-hand look at the title and praised its scale and “grandeur” as “incredible.”

He even pointed out that Bethesda has had rocky game releases in the past, like Fallout 76 and The Elder Scrolls Online. Rather than layoffs, ZeniMax instead gave them time to make improvements. Since coming under Microsoft’s ownership, however, things have changed quite a bit.

“That was one of the benefits. That’s why a lot of people had such long tenure here, and they were like, ‘Yeah, this is the place I’m gonna retire at,’ or ‘this is the place where I’m gonna finish out,’ or ‘I love being here because I want to stay in the industry for a long time.’ That was basically one of the benefits of being at Bethesda or a Zenimax studio in general.”

“But since we’ve been under Microsoft…it feels like something has changed. We didn’t have layoffs before, and now we all of a sudden we have yearly layoffs.”

Technical producer Nathan Hahn went on to talk about the importance of protecting jobs, not only for employee morale, but also because game development suffers. “Every coworker contributes to the success of our company. Without us, Bethesda games aren’t Bethesda games. If only five people knew how this thing worked and you let all five of them go, that’s a morale killer because it’s like we already knew this, and now we have to learn it again.”

Nguyen also pointed out that Microsoft was being misleading when it said the layoffs largely affected management layers with the aim of streamlining game development and approval processes. “We’ve seen statements that it’s like a whole bunch of middle management was let go. It’s not middle management. It’s people on the ground making sure that this game works and putting it in the hands of players.”

Earlier this month, Bethesda employees and members of the Communications Workers of America union had protested the mass layoffs by bringing a large inflatable rat named “Scabby” to display outside the studio’s Maryland office. The protest also included the planting of 800 red flags, each representing one of the workers affected by the layoffs. Interestingly, these protests took place on the same day as Xbox CEO Asha Sharma was visiting the Maryland office to try out an early build of The Elder Scrolls 6.

“Live playthrough of The Elder Scrolls 6: ******** this morning. The scale and grandeur are incredible. The story is even greater.”

As for the layoffs, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella called them “necessary decisions” that were made to ensure long-term growth for Xbox.

Fans of Bethesda’s games have taken the speculation a step further and have discovered some hints about The Elder Scrolls 6 in Starfield. As Reddit user StarfieldNovember noted, the Sentinel title could be spotted in the character creation screen for Starfield, which was first shown off more than three years ago. The “Employee Number” for a Starfield character, while initially looking like a random string, seems to in fact be a deliberate range of numbers – 190514-2009140512.

Dividing the entire string into pairs of numbers and introducing a substitution cipher to the mix to swap out pairs of numbers for the corresponding letter in the English alphabet, players have discovered that it spells out Sentinel. For example, “S” is the 19th letter of the alphabet. Similarly, “E” is the 5th letter. Another user on the Elder Scrolls subreddit noted that the number always stays the same, which would imply that it was a deliberate choice by Bethesda Game Studios.

Even if Kirkbride’s “confirmation” about Sentinel being the official title for The Elder Scrolls 6 might be suspect, since he hasn’t worked at Bethesda for quite some time now, the fact that the word Sentinel also shows up in Starfield offers stronger evidence for the veracity of the title.

Speculation about The Elder Scrolls 6’s title began when Sharma confirmed that she had played an early build of the open-world RPG. Referring to it as “The Elder Scrolls VI: ********”, and getting further confirmation from Bethesda that the hidden word is eight letters in length, fans of the company’s games immediately got to work to try and figure out what it could mean. If the title turns out to be Sentinel, this means that the upcoming game could be taking place in the region of Hammerfell.

Sentinel is one of the nine kingdoms in Hammerfell, and serves as the capital for two regions: the Alik’r Desert and Myrkwasa. The city itself has also been considered one of the safe havens for the western side of the world, and has been considered to be the capital for the entire Hammerfell region following the events of the Tiber War. When it comes to the games, Sentinel has only shown up in the first two releases in the franchise – Arena and Daggerfall. Since then, the region has only been mentioned throughout other games in books and conversations.

Another interesting aspect of the potential title is the fact that The Elder Scrolls 6 would be the third mainline entry in the franchise to feature a region name in its title, following The Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind and The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim. Other mainline entries have featured names like Arena, Daggerfall, and Oblivion.

“We’ve heard your feedback asking for an additional patch for Oblivion Remastered. The Nintendo Switch 2 version of the game has a number of optimizations that we are looking into bringing to other platforms, and we will share more when we are able.”

It is worth noting that The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion Remastered has faced quite a bit of criticism regarding its numerous bugs and other issues at launch. Bethesda has continued to support the title with a few updates since release. However, complaints have remained, and even the aggregated user reviews on Steam are still sitting at “Mixed” at the time of publishing.

These issues haven’t caused a dip in the RPG’s popularity, however. A report from January, for instance, has indicated that 1.1 million units of the game were sold on PS5 alone. Bethesda itself confirmed in July 2025 that the title had reached 9 million players.

The Nintendo Switch 2 version of The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion Remastered was announced back in June. Along with the base game, the remastered release also includes the Shivering Isles and Knights of the Nine expansions, as well as extra DLC, like Mehrune’s Razor, The Thieves Den, Fighter’s Stronghold, and the (infamous) Horse Armor Pack, among others.

Bethesda has also confirmed that the Switch 2 version runs at 900p and 30 FPS in handheld mode, and 1080p and 30 FPS when docked. It includes support for the console’s unique features, like the touchscreen, HD Rumble, gyro aiming, and the ability to use a Joy-Con 2 controller like a mouse. The visuals and performance have also seen some extra refinement thanks to the console’s support for DLSS-based image upscaling.

The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion Remastered puts players in the shoes of a prisoner who was put in jail for an unknown crime. While serving your sentence in the dungeons of the Imperial City, a group of soldiers, along with Emperor Uriel Septim, arrive to make use of a secret passage that can only be accessed from your cell. After a series of events, Septim is assassinated in front of your eyes, and you are tasked with finding the next heir to the throne. If things weren’t complicated enough, Oblivion rifts have started opening up across the realm of Cyrodiil, out of which daemons have been invading villages.

When it was originally released on PC, PS3, and Xbox 360, The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion was praised for its noticeable jump in visual and gameplay quality, as well as its more expansive world when compared to its predecessor – The Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind.

Following up, Bethesda Game Studios also took to social media to confirm that Sharma had indeed gotten some hands-on time with the game. “It was great being able to show you ********. Thank you for the kind words and a wonderful visit.”

Interestingly, some have also taken Sharma’s social media post to be an attempt to deflect from the criticisms faced by Xbox over recent layoffs. Bethesda’s employees and members of the Communications Workers of America (CWA) union recently brought a large inflatable rat named “Scabby” to display outside of Bethesda’s Maryland office. The rat itself is also surrounded by 800 red flags, each one meant to represent a worker who had been laid off in July. The inflatable rat was put up to coincide with Sharma’s visit to the office.

In the meantime, fans of The Elder Scrolls franchise have been trying to decipher what the eight hidden characters that are part of the game’s title could mean. It is worth noting that, while The Elder Scrolls 3 and 5 have featured the regions they take place in as part of their names – Morrowind and Skyrim, respectively – other titles have instead opted to include other words, like Arena, Oblivion, and Daggerfall. As such, the eight hidden letters wouldn’t necessarily correspond to a new region in Tamriel.

With that in mind, some have speculated that the game could be named after a single city or even a dominant race rather than an entire region. Some of the theorized names include Sentinel (Hammerfell), Balfiera (High Rock), Wrothgar (High Rock), and Orsinium (Hammerfell).

As for the recent layoffs, Bethesda has noted that its recent layoffs haven’t impacted the general development roadmap for the studio. Various studios under the larger Bethesda banner, including Bethesda Game Studios and ZeniMax Online Studios, have been hit quite hard. In an official statement, the company said that The Elder Scrolls 6 is its “primary development focus”.

“With over 65 million copies sold, players are still exploring Skyrim 15 years later, but we know it’s been a very long wait for the sequel,” said Bethesda Game Studios before noting that “We’re where we planned to be, loving how it looks, and playing it every day.”

However, employees still left at Bethesda have reportedly been worried about delays and even crunch for The Elder Scrolls 6 following the massive layoffs.

Following The Elder Scrolls 6, Bethesda is set to focus once more on its Fallout series of RPGs with a few projects, including remasters of Fallout 3 and New Vegas, as well as a joint project with Obsidian Entertainment, being confirmed to be in the works.

It’s a bit of welcome news for a studio that’s been under pressure to reach the dizzying heights its players have come to expect. Starfield hasn’t done as well as it might have liked (despite over 17 million players), but it had nuances that made it endearing to fans of the studio’s work while alienating others who might not have been familiar with The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim’s quirks. There was The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion Remastered and the buzz that it generated when it was shadow-dropped, but the lack of post-launch support was concerning.

Although the studio has assured us that development of the next Elder Scrolls title hasn’t been affected by layoffs, the lack of a closer look at where it’s at, and of course, our concerns that even recent Fallout reveals might not be enough to help it break away are all factors that it’s probably considering as it looks to the future.

Here’s to hoping that the new logo and the optimism the studio has expressed with its reveal are indicators of a new direction into a future where it continues to influence the genres it works in.

https://x.com/bethesda/status/2082843915724423334

It is worth noting that the layoffs across Bethesda as a whole, which includes teams from ZeniMax Online Studios and Bethesda Game Studios, have been quite extensive, with the former losing 213 of its employees. As for the latter, in an official statement, the company has said that its “primary development focus” is the long-awaited The Elder Scrolls 6.

“With over 65 million copies sold, players are still exploring Skyrim 15 years later, but we know it’s been a very long wait for the sequel. We’re where we planned to be, loving how it looks, and playing it every day.”

Previous reports have indicated Bethesda Game Studios has lost more than 50 of its employees due to the layoffs, which included “key, high-performing people in the trenches” across “a mix of every discipline: programmers, artists, and designers” that were working on the open-world RPG. “Their loss will have a substantial and cascading effect on the game and morale of this studio,” said one employee.

While these current and former Bethesda employees aren’t quite sure how the studio will continue developing the game going forward, one has expressed worries about being “replaced by cheaper contracted labor.” Some also believe that Bethesda might “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.”

Bethesda, for its part, has been generally quiet about the release window for The Elder Scrolls 6. In a recent Q&A session, Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier has posited that it might still be at least two years away. Even director Todd Howard hasn’t revealed much, simply saying that it’s “our biggest project right now” and that the team knows “we need to get it right, and it’s been a long time.”

The closest idea we’ve gotten about the state of The Elder Scrolls 6’s development has been a statement by Xbox CCO Matt Booty from back in June, when he said that it was “coming along well.” He went on to say that the team wants to “wait till the right moment” before it reveals more details.

“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.”

For more on The Elder Scrolls 6, take a look at our thoughts about how troubled it seems.

So what better thing to do than go on the offensive and lay out all its cards, as desperate as it may come across to some? That’s exactly what this recent “note” to fans has done, and if you thought the 2018 announcement of The Elder Scrolls 6 was a doozy, you might want to sit down for this.

Fallout 5 in pre-production. Remasters of Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas confirmed. The Outer Worlds 2’s developer working on a new Fallout project. ZeniMax Online Studios working with Bethesda on The Elder Scrolls (while still delivering new Elder Scrolls Online content). No Fallout Day this year, but there will be a special 30th anniversary celebration next year when it returns live from Washington, D.C. And…an unscripted Fallout Shelter TV show? We’ll ignore that one for now.

The Elder Scrolls 6 still doesn’t have a release date after all these years, but it remains the primary focus, with most of Bethesda currently on it. So far, it’s “loving how it looks and playing it every day,” though that part about how “We’re where we planned to be” is certainly an odd thing to say. Maybe to try and address those reports about how layoffs will result in delays and crunch?

And Starfield…will continue (they even used that exact word). No expansion or DLC announcements (yet), but Bethesda is looking to deliver “new stories, targeted gameplay improvements, and additional updates.” There’s even new Starborn content coming next year. It also mentioned over 40 percent of players use Creations and that it paid out over $10 million in royalties (not necessarily all on Starfield, mind you). Bethesda has released entire questlines through the Creation Store – maybe this is the path forward rather than hyping up some DLC that ultimately won’t deliver.

Now on the one hand, this “roadmap” barely qualifies as such, because the biggest announcements lack dates. Do I expect anyone in charge at the studio to approve telling us that Fallout 3 Remastered is coming next year? And then someone in charge at Xbox approve that? No, and hell no. But this comes across as a repeat of The Elder Scrolls 6 announcement. “We’re working on these things, please be excited.” It’s only really one step away from being an email if you think about it.

However, I’m not begrudging Bethesda for taking this route for two main reasons. First, it’s just gone through a massive restructuring process while saying goodbye to the numerous colleagues it’s worked with through ZeniMax Online Studios or id Software. If ever there was an occasion to try and reassure fans, amid all the rumors and reports, that the games they want are coming, even if the studio isn’t 100 percent A-okay, then this would be it. To say that this is a complete 180 from the usual practice of unveiling a game before it’s six months away from release would be an understatement.

Second, this note feels like an indirect admission – almost saying the quiet part out loud – that it can’t just leave franchises dormant for years, sometimes a decade. It also can’t have a singular team, the so-called crème of the crop, being the ones responsible for new entries. Hearing that remasters of older Fallout games are in the works isn’t all that surprising. Not because of all the rumors, or the fact that The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion Remastered was a runaway success, but because a Fallout 3 Remaster was mentioned in Microsoft’s documents during its legal battle with the FCC years ago. We’ve known it’s coming in some form or fashion once all those other announcements turned out to be true (except for Dishonored 3 because we can’t have nice things).

What’s surprising is the confirmation that The Outer World 2’s developer is working on a new Fallout project together with Bethesda. Is this one of the remasters? A brand-new spin-off? Whatever the case, it’s hard not to think that Xbox finally stepped in and mandated that The Outer World 2 ‘s developer should give the people what they want. And if that isn’t New Vegas 2, then it’s going to be something Fallout-related, especially since The Outer Worlds 2 and Avowed failed to really set the market on fire.

As for The Elder Scrolls Online team, it wouldn’t be surprising if future content is extremely pared down and it’s focused on supporting The Elder Scrolls 6. Because even if it hasn’t been working on the Creation Engine for all these years and needs to be brought up to speed, this is a team that’s been expanding Tamriel, developing new quests and characters at a regular pace for years. We don’t know how much has already been locked down for Bethesda’s big sequel, which could release in 2028 or 2029 if we’re lucky, but maybe this option is better than hiring contractors. Benefit of the doubt and all that.

However, you have to wonder whether having the same creatives in charge will be ultimately beneficial for Bethesda. I’m not going to complain too much about Todd Howard or Emil Pagliarulo – they’ve each had a key role in delivering some of the most iconic video games ever made. But their recent output – and by “recent,” I mean dating all the way back to Fallout 4 – hasn’t been up to snuff. The fact that Starfield had even less staying power, regardless of whether you like the game or not, is hard to deny. The fact that we’re only just getting around to remasters for Fallout 3 and New Vegas two years after the show premiered and primarily because of its success also shows a massive lack of foresight.

Maybe Howard is slowly planning to transition away from the same – he has confirmed that The Elder Scrolls 6 is his last game as a director, so for all we know, this is all a foregone conclusion.

Even if you consider this strategy to be a new direction, it’s ultimately in vain if Bethesda keeps making the same mistakes. Designing the same poorly told stories with companions most players don’t care about against the backdrop of decisions that don’t matter. The time for fresh ideas is long past due, but at present, Bethesda needs to change how it’s developing its games. Can we consider this a step in that direction, even as it sticks to Creation Engine 3?

Whatever the result, unscripted Fallout Shelter TV announcement (which sounds like a reality show in disguise) aside, I’m interested in this new strategy. Because at the end of the day, whether it’s Xbox, shareholders or the players themselves, it’s the games that ultimately matter. As much as Todd Howard believes that the team needs to “get it right” with The Elder Scrolls 6, you can only spend so much time and money on that before nearly a decade has passed without anything – including gameplay or even a reveal of the setting – to show for it.

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.

“The truth is, there was a period of time a while back where I pondered, what does it look like? Not is it imminent, but what does it look like? And I no longer do.” Howard said that the things he is working on at Bethesda serve as motivation for him to continue doing what he has been doing, and these days, retirement is far from his mind.

“I just love it. I love working with these people. It’s really not something I think about. Some folks in our industry, that are a little older than me, they’re just making great stuff too. So, it’s not something I’ve been thinking about.”

In another recent interview, Howard also spoke about the recent layoffs at Bethesda, saying that it was a “really tough” experience for the company as well as his colleagues. “This is Bethesda’s 40th anniversary, and there have been periods where we’ve gone through changes,” he said. “We’re going through a change so that we focus best on the franchises and what we need to do to deliver for everybody.”

As for the future, Howard is currently heading up development on The Elder Scrolls 6, which was announced all the way back in 2018. While Bethesda released Starfield in the years since, work has been focused almost entirely on the fantasy RPG, with much of the studio working on it.

Despite this, however, recent reports have indicated that The Elder Scrolls 6 is still at least two more years away. This shouldn’t really come as a surprise since the fantasy RPG is likely going to be quite massive in scope. Xbox CCO Matt Booty had spoken about the project back in June, when he said that it was “coming along well”.

“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.”

Howard likely also has his hands full with the new Fallout projects that were unveiled, which include remasters of Fallout 3 and New Vegas, a new Fallout game being made alongside Obsidian Entertainment, and eventually, Fallout 5.