Bethesda Reportedly Hit Hard By Layoffs, Told To Focus On Fallout

Xbox has shared more details about its latest round of layoffs. As part of a company-wide "reset", five studios will no longer be part of Xbox, with Ninja Theory and Undead Labs sold off, while Double Fine and Compulsion have effectively been made independent.

However, that doesn't account for all of the job cuts. CEO Asha Sharma has confirmed that there will be around 3,000 layoffs across the entire Xbox company and its studios. Now, it's being reported that ZeniMax and Bethesda are among the worst affected, and will be made to focus on their larger IPs.

Bethesda Will Reportedly Focus On Fallout And The Elder Scrolls, Which Doesn't Bode Well For Starfield

Paul Tassi from Forbes reports that Bethesda and ZeniMax are facing "some of the largest cuts" in this round of layoffs. Meanwhile, Jason Schreier from Bloomberg reports that ZeniMax as a whole will undergo a "significant overhaul", which will see it pivot to its biggest IPs, listed as: "Fallout, The Elder Scrolls, Doom, Quake and Wolfenstein."

Starfield is notably absent there. Bethesda had been supporting the game with the occasional patch and DLC, but this had done little to excite players and bring in new fans. Now, with Bethesda seemingly focusing on Fallout and The Elder Scrolls instead, it sounds like Starfield has run out of chances to turn its fortunes around.

This would all line up with previous reports. We had already heard that Xbox isn't happy with how long it's taken us to get Fallout 5 and The Elder Scrolls 6. Getting these sequels out the door would give Xbox some huge releases (and potentially exclusives), so it makes sense that it wants Bethesda to move on from Starfield.

What is baffling is that Bethesda will have to move on to these projects with a reduced workforce. The studio isn't known for juggling multiple projects at once at the best of times, so it's difficult to see how TES 6 and Fallout 5 are going to get here any quicker after the team is hit with layoffs.

Right now, we can only wait and see how other studios are being affected. So far, we only know about the studios that are no longer part of Xbox.

Bethesda