Bethesda staff have inflated a giant rat outside the company’s offices, during a visit by the Xbox management team to play The Elder Scrolls 6.
The large expandable rodent is the work of the CWA union, whose members include current and former Bethesda staff enraged by Microsoft’s recent mass layoffs. Former employees also carpeted the street outside Bethesda’s building with hundreds of red flags — one for every staff member laid off by Microsoft over the past 12 months.
Yesterday, Xbox boss Asha Sharma enthusiastically confirmed she had seen a “live playthrough” of Bethesda’s highly-anticipated upcoming RPG — and even teased its under-wraps subtitle. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Sharma made no mention of the enormous rat sat outside.
“The scale and grandeur are incredible,” Sharma said — referring to The Elder Scrolls 6. “The story is even greater.”
Footage from the CWA shared via Facebook shows Scabby, an infamous inflatable rat who has appeared at numerous employee protests, sited on the lawn outside Bethesda’s office on Piccard Drive in Rockville. Chants of “Who’s the rat? Microsoft!” can be heard in the background.
Scabby the Rat. Image credit: CWA.
Last month, current and former Bethesda staff told IGN that Microsoft’s devastating layoffs would have a “substantial and cascading effect” on the development of The Elder Scrolls 6, something Bethesda has denied. Job losses across Bethesda Game Studios locations included “key, high-performing people in the trenches” building the company’s long-awaited Skyrim successor, impacting morale and raising the risk of future development crunch and delays, we were told.
The layoffs were part of the 1,600 staff who lost their jobs amid a brutal downsizing of Xbox. In an email sent to staff, Sharma called it the most “significant” restructure in Xbox history, insisting Microsoft’s gaming business “is not healthy.” Overall, Xbox is losing about one-fifth of its staff as part of Sharma’s push for growth.
A further 1,600 staff will depart the company over the course of this year as Xbox looks to become a leaner operation focused on its biggest brands, such as Halo, Forza, Fallout and — yes — The Elder Scrolls.
Every IGN Elder Scrolls Review
“We decided to make our presence visible at the office to show how our developers have been impacted by these devastating layoffs,” Nathan Hahn, a Besthesda technical producer and union member, said in a statement shared on social media by journalist Chris Kerr.
Hahn said that existing staff had been blocked from placing posters on the outside of their office cubicles, so instead brought in balloons they could display from their workstations. Outside, meanwhile, a team of laid off developers placed those flags.
“We’re mobilising to fight back against these layoffs not just to ensure impacted Xbox devs and testers get treated fairly, but to remind our company and game studios everywhere that layoffs like this cannot continue. If Microsoft leadership does not have the courage to do what’s right for our studios to make the best possible games, it’s up to us to stand up for each other and protect the future of our careers and the game industry.”
It’s been reported that The Elder Scrolls 6 is still at least two years away from launch, despite the fact it was originally announced some eight years ago.
Tom Phillips is IGN’s News Editor. You can reach Tom at tom_phillips@ign.com or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social