Bethesda employees stage new protest against Microsoft layoffs. Allegedly, without them, the studio's games will get worse

Developer morale is currently at an all-time low.

New protests by Bethesda employees against mass layoffs in Microsoft Gaming divisions took place in nine cities across the US and Canada. The events were named Save Our Devs and were organized by the One Bethesda Game Studio (OneBGS) union with the support of the Communication Workers of America (CWA). The protests took place, in particular, in Redmond, Rockville, and Austin, where similar protests had previously occurred, as well as in Minneapolis and Albany.

Amidst the protests, unionized Bethesda employees told Kotaku about the situation within the company after the layoffs. Technical producer Nathan Han noted that back in February, the union sent Microsoft a proposal on how to conduct staff reductions. According to him, the company did not respond to the document for four months, after which it carried out mass layoffs.

Lead character artist Alex Nguyen also refuted the idea that the layoffs primarily affected middle managers. According to him, employees directly involved in game development and ensuring their releases lost their jobs.

According to Han, the morale of the remaining Bethesda employees, directly related to their work, is currently at an all-time low. At the same time, the mood within the union movement, on the contrary, is improving: the developer stated that the morale of the organization's participants "is going up."

CWA and its Canadian counterpart, CWA Canada, filed complaints against Microsoft with the US National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) last month. The unions accuse the company of improper conduct of layoffs, including failure to provide information to the union, unfair negotiations, "coercive actions," and changes to employment contract terms.