Being fired from a company where you have been for so many years is very hard, especially if we talk about XBOX and Bethesda. As you may well know, Microsoft has restarted the XBOX business, leading to the layoff of 3,200 employees across the video game division this year. In this wave of cuts, Bethesda has been affected by restructuring, something that has affected several important studios within the company. However, current unionized employees have decided to organize a march in protest.

Official poster of the ‘Save Our Devs’ march, called by Bethesda Game Studios workers and other ZeniMax teams to protest against XBOX layoffs.

A march against XBOX layoffs organized in Bethesda

The OneBGS union, affiliated with the Communications Workers of America and which represents the workers of sagas such as Fallout, Starfield and The Elder Scrolls, has confirmed that will organize a march call ‘Save Our Devs March‘ next Wednesday, July 15, 2026 in front of the studio’s four headquarters: Montreal, Rockville, Austin and Dallas. These protests respond to the dismissal of 440 unionized employees in Bethesda and ZeniMax during the latest Xbox restructuring.

“The leadership of Microsoft and ZeniMax have made the devastating decision to cut more than 440 jobs at BGS, ZOS, id, ZWU (QA) and ZeniMax HQ. Because we have organized and achieved certification from our unions, we have hard-earned rights and legal protections that non-union studios simply do not have. The company wants that we accept this as a fait accompli and that let’s disappear in silence“writes the union (via Windows Central).

“We will not allow that to happen. Our next steps are to mobilize. We need each and every member to make themselves visible and stay united. To that end, we announced our ‘Save Our Devs’ march at all studios on Wednesday, July 15.” In addition to mobilizing in the streets, OneBGS has announced that it will also will negotiate directly with Microsoft through a legal process in which the union will demand that the laid off workers have priority to occupy the Future vacancies at Xbox against external candidates.

In addition, they will demand higher compensation, an extension of health coverage and reinstatement rights in the event that the studio hires staff again, as we have already mentioned previously. This cut has hit ZeniMax Online Studios especially hard after the layoff of 200 people, which has led to The Elder Scrolls Online having to modify its roadmap. Not only that, the DOOM team, id Software, has suffered more than 100 layoffs, although they assure that they have enough workforce to continue creating video games.

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