Union members at Bethesda Game Studios' Rockville headquarters staged a protest with a giant inflatable rat and hundreds of red flags, timed to coincide with a reported visit from Xbox head Asha Sharma. The demonstration, organised by OneBGS-CWA, was intended to make visible the scale of job losses affecting Microsoft-owned game studios, after workers said management had already told them they could not display posters facing outward from their cubicles.

Each red flag represented an individual laid-off worker, with organiser Nathan Hahn stating the display was a reminder that "layoffs like this cannot continue." Around 1,600 Xbox-related jobs have already been cut, with a further 1,600 potentially at risk over the coming year. The action precedes wider "Save Our Devs" rallies planned for 18 August at several Microsoft-owned studios, including Blizzard's Irvine office, id Software in Texas, and ZeniMax sites in Maryland, following earlier union claims that laid-off Montreal staff were offered minimal severance.