The Elder Scrolls 6 is still at least two years out — and Xbox layoffs just made things worse

The Elder Scrolls 6 is at minimum two more years from release, according to Bloomberg reporter Jason Schreier, speaking during a live Q&A this week. That grim timeline lands alongside news that the Xbox restructuring — which cut 1,600 jobs this week, with another 1,600 planned over the rest of the year — has already hit Bethesda Game Studios directly, removing more than 50 people from the team building the Skyrim sequel.

Multiple current and former Bethesda staff, speaking anonymously to IGN, described the cuts as removing "key, high-performing people in the trenches" across programming, art, and design. One staffer noted that a developer who had been at the company since Morrowind was among those let go. The mood inside the studio is bleak enough that employees at Bethesda's Dallas and Rockville offices set up makeshift memorial displays — framed photos of laid-off colleagues surrounded by flowers — in common areas, though at least one was dismantled on orders from HR. Staff told IGN they fear the losses will cause crunch, delay the game further, and force the studio to replace experienced talent with contractors. "Their loss will have a substantial and cascading effect on the game and morale of this studio," one staffer said. Bethesda boss Jill Braff, in an email to staff, framed the cuts as necessary to "return to sustainable growth" and said teams would now focus on the company's "strongest franchises" — a list that includes The Elder Scrolls and Fallout. Xbox chief content officer Matt Booty has visited Bethesda and says the game is "coming along well," but declined to give any reveal window beyond "at the right time."

The Elder Scrolls 6 was announced at E3 in June 2018 via a brief CGI teaser that showed almost nothing — and fans have seen nothing since. Todd Howard has repeatedly acknowledged the announcement came too early; as recently as March 2026 he joked that everyone should pretend Bethesda hadn't announced it at all. In February he confirmed the studio can now play the game internally and that a "big milestone" was approaching, with the majority of the studio working on it. But he also reiterated it's "gonna be a while yet" and has floated the idea of a shadow drop rather than a traditional reveal campaign. The broader Xbox restructuring, driven by new CEO Asha Sharma who called it the most significant in Xbox history, has also gutted id Software and ZeniMax Online Studios — the team behind The Elder Scrolls Online.

The Bethesda Games Studio Union has amplified a post on Xbox's Player Voice feedback platform calling attention to the layoffs, which has gathered over 2,500 upvotes and cracked the top 20 user suggestions on the site. Fan frustration is running high — not just at the wait, but at the sense that the people who know the game best are being walked out the door while development still has years to go.