Asha Sharma, CEO of Xbox, has revealed she was given a live playthrough of The Elder Scrolls VI during a visit to Bethesda Game Studios HQ this week, although protests regarding the recent layoffs at the studio continued during her visit outside the offices.
“Live playthrough of The Elder Scrolls VI: ******** this morning,” Sharma commented. “The scale and grandeur are incredible. The story is even greater.”
Protests by the Bethesda Game Studios Union and members of the Communications Workers of America were continuing outside the office, with CWA union members having inflated a giant rat known as Scabby outside the building. The rat has been used previously by the CWA while protesting against unfair labour practices. In addition, hundreds of red flats were placed in the ground outside the company’s HQ, each one meant to represent a casualty of the job losses.
Nathan Hahn, a member of OneBGS, revealed that union staff were making their presence known inside Bethesda’s offices while Sharma was attending the playthrough.
We heard that Microsoft leadership was coming to our office this week, and decided to make our presence visible at the office to show how our developers have been impacted by these devastating layoffs. To show our presence, we put up posters around the office, but we were immediately told by management we couldn’t have posters facing the outside of our cubes. Then, we brought in balloons so that they could see we were here, but inside our cubes this time.
A separate team of laid off developers planted flags outside, one flag for each laid off dev. Each flag was a public reminder of how many people management cut from our teams – not just our colleagues and coworkers, but our friends at the end of the day.
Bethesda Game Studios recently confirmed that The Elder Scrolls VI is the ‘primary development focus‘ for the studio, although a release date still continues to remain elusive.
[Source – Asha Sharma on X, OneBGS Bethesda Game Studios Union on BlueSky via VGC]