Bethesda Game Studios reportedly suffered “significant” cuts during this week’s Xbox layoffs, which put 1,600 employees out of work across Microsoft’s gaming division as the initial wave of a sweeping reorganization scheme aiming to achieve 3,800 layoffs by the end of the company’s 2027 fiscal year.
In the aftermath of Xbox’s bloodletting, the Bethesda Game Studios Union says staff at the studio’s Rockville, Maryland office assembled a “Celebration of Service” display honoring their laid off colleagues—a display that employees were “almost immediately” forced to remove by the company’s human resources department, the union says.
The BGSU first shared images of the Rockville display on Bluesky this morning, saying the Maryland office had been inspired by a similar display that had been organized by employees at Bethesda’s Dallas offices. A follow-up post, however, indicated that the display had been short-lived.
“Unfortunately, HR made our office manager take this down almost immediately,” the BGS Union said. “They said because it’s in a common area, it had to be removed.”