Rumor: Bethesda Studio Shut Down by Microsoft

Microsoft may have shut down Bethesda France as part of the layoffs announced earlier this year. Multiple people have recently appeared online claiming that Bethesda France was closed, but Microsoft did not confirm these rumors at the time of this report.

Microsoft announced major layoffs back in January, revealing that it would cut around 1,900 employees from its company in 2024. It was a pretty controversial decision, especially considering that Activision Blizzard was heavily affected by the layoffs, despite being purchased by Microsoft during the previous year. These cuts represented around 8% of Microsoft’s entire workforce, and the company did not disclose exactly what areas would be affected by the decision.

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Now, a new rumor indicates that Microsoft may have shut down Bethesda France after 12 years of the company’s existence. According to Insider Gaming, multiple people have talked about the possible closure of the company on social media. The examples include a former Bethesda France community manager called Scotty Cool, who lamented leaving the company after working there for eight years and thanked the community for their support. In the replies to Scotty’s tweet, he confirmed that he left Bethesda France due to global mass layoffs at Microsoft.

How Many People Could Be Affected By The Possible Closure of Bethesda France?

• 15 people work in Bethesda France.

Fans of Bethesda’s biggest hits such as Fallout and The Elder Scrolls should know that these possible layoffs will likely not have a major impact on the company’s plans for future games, though. Bethesda France employed 15 employees, according to Insider Gamer, and most of them were focused on marketing and publishing games in the country.

Even now, the full impact of Microsoft’s layoffs is still unknown. However, the layoffs seem to be greatly impacting secondary areas of gaming companies such as customer service, marketing, and publishing. For instance, soon after the layoffs were announced, it was revealed that most of Blizzard’s customer support team had been let go, with Microsoft planning to outsource some of the department’s tasks.

In other cases, major projects have been canceled due to these layoffs. One of the most high-profile examples was the cancelation of Blizzard’s unannounced survival game. The project had been in development for over five years and was implied that it was in development hell for a while before cancelation. At the moment, Bethesda is known to be working on the upcoming Indiana Jones game, The Elder Scrolls 6, Fallout 5 (probably in pre-production), as well as other unconfirmed games, but none seem to be affected by the layoffs.

Bethesda

Bethesda is an American game development studio based in Maryland. They’re best known for the Elder Scrolls and Fallout series. ZeniMax Media, Bethesda’s parent company, was acquired by Microsoft in 2021, which then made it a part of Xbox Game Studios.

Date Founded

June 28, 1986

Headquarters

Rockville, Maryland, United States

CEO

Todd Howard

Subsidiaries

Bethesda Game Studios