Xbox CEO Praises Elder Scrolls 6 Playthrough While Bethesda Workers Protest Layoffs With a Giant Inflatable Rat
Xbox CEO Asha Sharma saw a live playthrough of The Elder Scrolls 6 at Bethesda Game Studios on Tuesday and came away impressed, writing on X that the game's "scale and grandeur are incredible" and "the story is even greater" (VGC).
The visit confirmed that the long-awaited role-playing game — Bethesda's follow-up to 2011's Skyrim, first announced in 2018 — is now in a playable state. Sharma also teased the game's subtitle during her studio visit, according to IGN, though she did not reveal what it is.
Outside the building, the mood was sharply different. Members of OneBGS — the union at Bethesda Game Studios, part of the Communications Workers of America (CWA) — and fellow CWA members staged a protest during Sharma's visit over Microsoft's recent layoffs. They inflated "Scabby," a giant inflatable rat long used by American labour groups as a protest symbol, and stationed it outside the Bethesda office to watch the Xbox executives walking in.
The demonstrators also planted hundreds of red flags in the ground outside the studio. Each flag represented one game worker laid off by Microsoft so far this year, according to VGC.
Protest was not confined to the car park. OneBGS member Nathan Hahn said union staff made their presence felt inside the offices as well, putting up posters and bringing in balloons after management had restricted employees from displaying posters facing outside their workstations (VGC).
What makes the scene striking is the contrast. On one side of the wall, the head of Xbox was getting a first-hand look at one of the most anticipated games in development and publicly praising it. On the other, workers who built the company's games were counting the colleagues they say were cut this year, one red flag at a time.
Bethesda Game Studios is the developer behind the Elder Scrolls and Fallout franchises and has been part of Microsoft since the publisher's parent company, ZeniMax Media, was acquired in 2021. OneBGS unionised in 2024, joining a wave of organising across the games industry.
No release date for The Elder Scrolls 6 has been announced. The game was first revealed with a teaser trailer at E3 2018, and updates have been sparse in the years since.
