Microsoft’s latest layoffs have hit ZeniMax Online, the studio behind The Elder Scrolls Online. A WARN notice filed in Maryland, where ZeniMax is based, says 213 employees were cut at ZeniMax Online and 166 more jobs were cut at ZeniMax Media.
The full impact on the ESO team is still unclear, but one employee claimed on Bluesky that about half of the studio’s active developers working on content had been laid off. That claim has not been independently verified.
Former staff also reacted sharply. A former ESO developer wrote on X that the team had poured years into the game and did not get enough support to keep up with its release cadence, calling the loss hard on both the studio and the people involved.
I’m just so angry today. People will never know the blood, sweat, and tears that went into making ESO or how we basically funded other failing projects while never getting enough resources to really keep up with our release cadence. The team deserved much better.
— Andrew Young (@myrix) July 6, 2026
This is at least the second major layoff wave ZeniMax Online has faced in the last year under Microsoft. In the id Software layoffs, another WARN notice showed that the cuts were not isolated to one studio, but part of a wider reset across Xbox’s first-party teams.
If you have thoughts on what this means for The Elder Scrolls Online, share them in the comments. You can also join us on X, Bluesky, YouTube, and Instagram.
The Elder Scrolls Online
Developed by ZeniMax Online Studios
Every legend starts somewhere and in The Elder Scrolls Online, it starts with you. Write your story into a vibrant chapter of Tamriel’s distant past that takes place nearly 1,000 years before the iconic TES V: Skyrim, and discover a world steeped in adventure and possibility.
- Genre: Role-playing (RPG), Adventure
- Platforms: Google Stadia, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 4, PC (Microsoft Windows), PlayStation 5, Mac, Xbox One
- Modes: Single player, Multiplayer, Co-operative, Massively Multiplayer Online (MMO)
- Release: 2014-04-04
- Publisher: Bethesda Softworks
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Age Rating:
ACB M / USK 16 / CLASS_IND 14 / GRAC 19+ / PEGI 18 / ESRB M / CERO D
- IGDB Rating: 71.8/100
