The Elder Scrolls 6 faces fresh uncertainty after a sweeping wave of Xbox layoffs, which a new IGN report says will have serious knock-on effects for the long-awaited game's development at Bethesda. Staff cited by the report warned that the cuts hit "key, high-performing people in the trenches" working on the title, and have "shattered morale, raised the risk of future development crunch, and increased the likelihood" that the game's already distant completion date slips further. Given that the sequel was announced more than eight years ago and has shown nothing since, the news adds to fears that fans face an even longer wait.

The layoffs reportedly spanned several of Bethesda's locations and affected staff across every discipline, including programmers, artists and designers, with one of those let go said to have been at the company since Morrowind. The cuts form part of a wider Xbox "reset" that will see more than 3,200 jobs lost over the coming year. The article speculates that the best-case scenario may now be a launch on Microsoft's next console, referred to as Project Helix, which is expected to cost $1,000 or more, making a release on the current Xbox Series X|S within the next few years hard to imagine.