Laying off the people making The Elder Scrolls 6 while desperately tr…

Kurt Kuhlmann became a central figure for The Elder Scrolls in the two decades and change he spent as lore expert and world builder at the studio, and, from where he's standing now, Bethesda owner Xbox's decision to cut veteran devs from the team working on The Elder Scrolls 6 doesn't make a lick of sense.

Kuhlmann discusses his experience at Bethesda with FRVR, noting that layoffs didn't happen until after Microsoft acquired the company and Zenimax. He echoes criticism from the Bethesda union, arguing that the layoffs didn't hit the "14 layers of management" decried in Microsoft's plan to streamline Xbox. Rather, dozens of experienced, hands-on developers were cut.

"They weren’t laying off the people managing things," he says. "They were laying off people that were creating the game." He describes the impacted devs as "very senior and longtime, like, the best people you can imagine." librea.one

Devs impacted by layoffs at Bethesda include 27-year veteran Christiane Meister, a core artist for Skyrim, Oblivion, Morrowind, Fallout 3, and Fallout 4; Ray Lederer, the last Skyrim concept artist still at the studio, and a Bethesda artist of 18 years; and Ben Carnow, whose weapon and creature designs are a fundamental part of Fallout and Elder Scrolls lore.

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"I can't say I understand it, even from a pure just business money point of view," Kulhmann says of the layoffs. "If you want the money from [The Elder Scrolls 6], why would you fire people who are working on that and are going to make it happen, and make it better, and get it done faster? Why would you do that?"

The layoffs followed a report that new Xbox CEO Asha Sharma is pushing Bethesda to speed up production for new Fallout and The Elder Scrolls games, stoking fears that the "do more with less" management mentality afflicting many companies had finally come for the studio.

"These aren't people that screwed up, were slacking off, or bad at their jobs," Kuhlmann adds, having worked with many of the people affected. "That means anyone could be laid off. That means you have no way to know. You can’t just be good and work harder and know you’re safe."

In August, Sharma, amid an executive visit that saw union members protest outside the studio campus, said she'd seen a "live playthrough" of The Elder Scrolls 6.

"We shouldn't have made it," says former Starfield lead, because something more than "Skyrim in space" was too much even for Bethesda.

Destiny's Taken King expansion is officially 11 years old, and former Bungie studio vice president Mark Noseworthy marked the occasion by saying what many Destiny players have thought a million times: this game is so good, but it could be so much better.

In a post on Twitter, Noseworthy, who left Bungie in 2024 along with some other senior staff amidst layoffs, describes The Taken King as his personal pinnacle.

"Of all the parts of Destiny I’ve worked on, this remains my personal favorite as a player and the one I’m most proud of," he reflects. "We knew Destiny 1 was so close to great; it was just missing some ingredients and a different preparation. 'I love playing Destiny. I hate that it’s not better' was our mantra while making [The Taken King]."

The early days of Destiny were some of the series' messiest, with players and Bungie both unsure of what the game was meant to be. The Vault of Glass, the first raid, helped crystallize the vision and, frankly, resuscitate the game, but it was The Taken King – a blast of new content, an immeasurably stronger story, added buildcrafting options, and improved progression and endgame pursuits – that really pushed the game over the top. This is what Destiny can be.

The Taken King is still remembered as one of the best expansions in Destiny's history – to some, the best, though I personally put it behind The Witch Queen and, at the top, The Final Shape. (It's no coincidence that most of the best expansions are Hive-themed, as the Hive have the best lore.) It also cemented a pattern that would come to define much of Destiny's life, and a slightly meaner mantra that many players adopted: I hate Destiny, it's my favorite game.

Throughout its life, Destiny has often felt like it's about to turn the corner, with only its finest expansions actually delivering on everything expected or imagined, and avoiding systemic missteps that another expansion would have to fix.

Looking back, a lot of Destiny expansions really were fixers. Destiny 2's Forsaken, for example, was a near shot-for-shot replay of The Taken King: after a troubled launch, Bungie stepped in to correct a bunch of errors. That became my acid test for expansions: how much of this is fixing Destiny, and how much of this is celebrating or expanding it? Is the game great now, or could it be great later?

The final update for Destiny 2, stuck in stasis after Bungie ended active development and began to really prioritize digging Marathon out of its rut, left it in arguably the best place it's ever been, with FOMO removed, loot updated, and many events available. But with the end of development, the game also stopped chasing those new horizons. We'll never turn the corner now.

Bungie ends Marathon's seasonal schedule, delays a September update to December, and makes it more like Destiny 2.