Xbox CEO's TES 6 Preview Gatecrashed By A Massive Rat
While Asha Sharma Visited Bethesda, Workers Put A Giant Inflatable Rat Outside The Office
Yesterday, Xbox CEO Asha Sharma revealed that she had been shown a new preview of The Elder Scrolls 6. She praised the work that's gone into the game, specifically its story, and even dropped a hint on what it could be called.
However, this wasn't all that happened at Bethesda yesterday. To mark Sharma's visit, the Communications Workers of America (CWA), a union that represents game workers, held a demonstration outside of the building - and had a giant inflatable rat for all to see.
Scabby The Rat Goes Up Outside Bethesda Game Studios, Along With A Tribute To Laid-Off Workers
Xbox CEO Asha Sharma visited Bethesda Game Studios offices yesterday and CWA union members inflated a giant rat, known as Scabby, to protest the ongoing Xbox layoffs. They also planted red flags to represent each person laid off by Xbox recently — Tom Warren (@tomwarren.co.uk) 2026-08-12T09:23:13.493Z
This was organised by the CWA as part of its campaign against Xbox's latest round of layoffs. The union is currently fighting to ensure that its members are leaving with the best deals possible, and to combat the narrative that these layoffs were necessary.
"We heard that Microsoft leadership was coming to our office this week, and decided to make our presence visible at the office to show how our developers have been impacted by these devastating layoffs," CWA member Nathan Hahn told Game Developer. "To show our presence, we put up posters around the office, but we were immediately told by management we couldn't have posters facing the outside of our cubes.
"Then, we brought in balloons so that they could see we were here, but inside our cubes this time. A separate team of laid-off developers planted flags outside, one flag for each laid-off dev. Each flag was a public reminder of how many people management cut from our teams—not just our colleagues and coworkers, but our friends at the end of the day."
Of course, the giant rat is a good way to get attention, too. Even as Sharma used the visit as an opportunity to tease TES 6 on social media, the union has managed to get the narrative to include the recent layoffs, thanks to this demonstration.
On the whole, Sharma's visit is pretty tone deaf. She was visiting a workplace that she just oversaw mass layoffs for, including devs who would have been working on The Elder Scrolls 6. I can't imagine that felt too great for anyone involved, including the devs who survived the layoffs, losing their friends only to have the big boss ask how everything is coming along.
As it stands, Xbox studios will be bracing themselves for another round of layoffs. A further 1,600 job cuts are expected later this year.