The Elder Scrolls Online’s developers have spent the past two years running a gauntlet of bad news, and they are finally talking about it openly. A major project was scrapped in July 2025, followed by 62 layoffs. Then, in July of this year, Xbox’s reset hit Zenimax Online hard, with 213 more employees laid off. That brought the studio’s development team down by roughly 60% in a single year.
The game’s director, Nick Giacomini, spoke to PC Gamer’s MMO columnist about the toll of those cuts. He said the staff feels the weight of it personally, even as they push forward.
The Layoffs, In Order
| Event | Date | Employees Affected |
|---|---|---|
| Project Blackbird scrapped | July 2025 | 62 layoffs |
| Xbox reset hits Zenimax Online | July of this year | 213 layoffs |
| Total drop in dev team | One year | Roughly 60% |
The sequence reads like a checklist of misfortune. A project gets canceled, then a reset wave takes out nearly half the remaining staff. The game’s January rally, which promised refreshed animations and a new seasonal structure, now looks like a distant memory.
Giacomini’s Message To Players
Giacomini addressed the community directly in July, postponing many of the game’s updates to 2027. His reasoning was blunt: the team did not want to rush to meet a deadline.
“We didn’t want to rush to just hit a date,” Giacomini told PC Gamer. “We want the player experience to be as rewarding as possible to continue to surprise players and get them excited. And had we rushed it, would have put that at risk. So we wanted to give the team the space to be able to do it right, which necessarily meant pushing dates out for some things.”
He framed the decision as a commitment to quality over schedule. The catch is that the dates are now pushed out.
A Plan For The Future
Giacomini insisted the studio is not just surviving. He said he was in a meeting that day about plans for the end of 2027 and early 2028.
“We’re not just trying to figure out what to do now,” he said. “We very much have an eye toward the future and how to continue to grow and excite players in this game.”
That is a fair point, but it is also a strange one to make in the shadow of two rounds of layoffs. The message is that the team is thinking beyond the immediate crisis, which is exactly what players want to hear.
The Community Response
The support from players has been steady, according to Giacomini. Some players were disappointed by the delays, but no real anger was directed at Zenimax Online itself.
“I think our community is certainly one of the best—perhaps I’m a little bit biased—but it’s one of the reasons that I love this game,” he said. “We’ve had people reach out, we’ve had people post. We had a book that was made by our community, and it’s now sitting in the office on a desk open right in the middle where everybody can see it. They wrote about what makes Elder Scrolls Online special to them, things that have stood out, and it is extraordinarily heartwarming.”
The book, perched on a desk for all to see, is a small gesture. But it is the kind of detail that makes the difference between a company that is grateful and one that is performing gratitude.
New Content Coming In September
Mercifully, the game is not going to be completely dry before these delays land. On September 28, ESO will get three new bits of content:
- The Nowhere Vault, an experimental set of puzzles, mazes, and jumping challenges arranged in a randomized order.
- The High Seas of Tamriel, an event that sends players battling on ships and underwater.
- Rumours, a special type of quest that is essentially a scavenger hunt with no quest markers and only hints.
Associate game director Jason Barnes described the rumour system as a way to pull players out of streamlined questing and into something more immersive. He recalled the sense of discovery that defined older MMOs.
“We all have grown up in MMOs, and I know probably for everyone here, our time has changed dramatically over the years, but there was this sense of discovery and exploration back then, and coming across something interesting where you don’t really know the answer, no one’s pointing to a direction and saying you have to go here or anything like that,” Barnes said.
Barnes added that early testing and feedback have been very positive. Players have asked for harder, more obscure quests, which is exactly the kind of response the team wanted.
The Experiment Pays Off
Giacomini pointed to Night Market as proof that experiments can work. The feature was initially hard content that overwhelmed players, but the community eventually embraced it.
“The Night Market is a great example … at first, players didn’t quite know what to make of it. They came in and just got steamrolled right away. It was hard content, and so there were a lot of calls for like, ‘Oh my god, this is so overtun,'” he said.
The pattern is familiar. A new feature arrives, it is too hard, players complain, and then they learn to love it.
What We Make Of It
The sincerity in Giacomini’s words is hard to dispute. He and his team clearly care about the game, and they clearly care about the people who play it. The problem is that caring only gets you so far when the resources keep shrinking.
The promise to “do it right” rather than “hit a date” is a noble one. It is also a promise that has already been broken, since the delays mean the dates have shifted to 2027 regardless of how much care the team puts in.
Players are being told to wait, but they are also being told that the future is bright. Both cannot fully be true at once.
The community’s response matters. Support is not a guarantee of success, but it is a buffer. When the studio is at its lowest, the players are holding up the floor.
For now, the game has new content coming in September. That is something concrete to look forward to, even if the bigger picture remains uncertain.
The Elder Scrolls Online has weathered storms before. This one is different only in scale. The team is committed, the players are loyal, and the game is still here.
Source material: “The Elder Scrolls Online's devs are pushing through hard times after layoffs and delays: 'We didn't want to rush to just hit a date',” PC Gamer.
Get the Notebook.
The day's best stories and every fresh verdict, in plain English, in your inbox by seven. One email a day, no more.