ZeniMax Boss says he wants The Elder Scrolls Online to be "the 30 year-old-MMO"

On July 2, 2025, Microsoft laid off a significant chunk of its Xbox gaming division, affecting over 9,000 employees in one of the most severe rounds of job cuts in the industry to date. This hit multiple in-house studios, including ZeniMax Online, the developers behind The Elder Scrolls Online.

Reports suggest that ZeniMax Studios lost a third of its workforce, losing critical staff and data essential for the ongoing development of The Elder Scrolls Online. These layoffs also led to the abrupt cancellation of ZeniMax’s internally praised project Blackbird, an MMORPG borrowing elements from Destiny and Cyberpunk 2077.

In the wake of these events, ZeniMax Online Studios has gone through major emotional and operational challenges, as detailed by studio game director Rich Lambert in a recent interview with PCGamesN.

Rich Lambert became game director in mid-August, just a month before the massive cuts took place. He described the layoffs as a “super emotional time” as he lost several long-time colleagues. In an interview with PCGamesN, he stated, “There were friends and colleagues involved that I had personally worked with for ten to fifteen years, and we lost them. You go through a sort of mourning process.”

These cuts not only affected ZeniMax’s core team but also the broader studio, as staff vented over “hollow” layoff communications and the difficulty of maintaining productivity amid the restructuring. Despite the whole restructuring, which staff members labeled “disgusting” and “betraying”, ZeniMax is still fully committed to its flagship MMORPG.

Despite so many changes, Lambert is still single-minded on The Elder Scrolls Online’s vision, stating, “But, at the end of the day, we still have our commitment to our community, to the game, and everyone that’s still here, and we have to move forward, as hard as that is. That’s what the studio focused on, we want ESO to be the 30-year-old MMO.”

Lambert is now operating at a higher-level directorial position, handing day-to-day ESO leadership to longtime product management director Nick Giacomini, a change he considered “bittersweet.” Speaking about this change, Lambert said:

“Nick is here to do the day-to-day, but I’m still involved in it - it’s kind of my baby. But I get to look at the studio-level things and the future-level things, and that’s all new to me. It’s a new challenge and it’s really, really exciting. Stepping away’s been harder than I thought it was going to be, but I’m excited to.”

Even as the layoffs have shaken up morale, ESO presses on with updates to keep players engaged, as ZeniMax rolled out Update 47 Feast of Shadows in mid-August, which included the addition of mechanics such as swimming mounts and content updates.