Former ESO designer laments blow to ZeniMax Online after Xbox layoffs

Yesterday's Xbox layoffs hit morale hard, and while some pointed out no studios were closed, the impact on long-standing teams is profound. Former Elder Scrolls Online content designer Andrew Young — who worked at ZeniMax Online Studios from 2012-2042 — expressed that grief in a short thread on X, saying, "I’m just so angry today." He wrote that people will never know "the blood, sweat, and tears that went into making ESO" and accused the studio of funding other failing projects while lacking resources to keep up with ESO's release cadence, adding, "The team deserved much better." ESO has had a rocky history: its 2014 launch underwhelmed, and a 2015 shift to Tamriel Unlimited improved its fortunes, though it often felt like a lesser cousin to the genre's biggest MMOs.