Xbox CEO Asha Sharma has reportedly been heavily betting on the division's biggest franchises, including The Elder Scrolls and Fallout, as well as Halo, DOOM, and Wolfenstein. This would suggest that these franchises should get more funding, not less, yet the studios that make them were hit hard by the Xbox layoffs.
id Software, for example, maker of DOOM (their latest DLC for the Dark Ages game, Revelations, is out now), was essentially halved and lost most of its coders, which is a shame as the proprietary idTech engine was their trademark and pride. Maybe it'll be maintained by MachineGames going forward, but even so, it's a shame.
Perhaps even more baffling is the situation with The Elder Scrolls VI. That's arguably the most hyped of all the announced games within the Xbox portfolio, owing to Skyrim's incredible success (the game had sold over 60 million units as of June 2023). Divesting Compulsion Games, Double Fine Productions, Undead Labs, and Ninja Theory, as well as laying off a lot of people across the whole studio roster, could have made some sense from a business perspective if games like The Elder Scrolls VI were bolstered in return, following the new mandate of focusing on big IPs.
And yet, according to the Bethesda Game Studios Union, even this team has been hit hard by this round of layoffs. On BlueSky, the Union wrote:
Yesterday's layoffs at Bethesda Game Studios were not a cut of "14 layers of management". We lost dozens of programmers, artists, designers, and testers. Many of whom worked at BGS for decades. If Bethesda fans are worried this will harm the quality of our future games, like The Elder Scrolls VI, let Microsoft know!
That, coupled with the fact that The Elder Scrolls VI is still reportedly two to three years away (according to Jason Schreier), paints a confusing picture. The game is still quite a long way off; the new management wants this kind of game done sooner, and the studio is receiving significant cuts. Something clearly doesn't work in that equation.
About the author: With over two decades of experience in gaming journalism, Alessio Palumbo has led the gaming vertical at Wccftech since August 2015. He started working at a young age for Italian websites like Everyeye.it, Gamestar.it, Nextgame.it, and Multiplayer.it before kickstarting the indie English-language publication Worlds Factory as its founder and Editor in Chief. In the last decade, he has coordinated the overall output of Wccftech's gaming section, managed PR relations, assigned reviews, produced daily news coverage, edited gaming content as needed, and delivered game reviews. Arguably, his trademark content is the long series of exclusive developer interviews that have been cited by Wikipedia and by the biggest news media and gaming publications. His passion for technology also makes him knowledgeable when it comes to gaming hardware and tech. His favorite genres include RPGs, MMORPGs, and action/adventure games.
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