Microsoft recently laid off around 9,000 employees, many of whom worked in its video game division, and this has thrown ZeniMax Media into complete chaos. Workers at the Xbox subsidiary are calling the experience “inhuman” and say it feels like a betrayal, leaving those still employed feeling like they were “run over by a truck.”
Beyond the emotional damage, the layoffs have hurt productivity and created a culture of fear inside the company. The way the layoffs happened made everything even more confusing. Microsoft used abrupt, impersonal methods to notify people, leaving many ZeniMax employees shocked when they suddenly lost access to work systems like Slack and email without any warning from Human Resources.
Zenimax Is Feeling the Weight of the Layoffs From Microsoft
This immediate lockout left people stuck for hours, not knowing if they still had a job or how they would be told. The lack of clear communication before cutting off access caused panic, with workers rushing to off-work Discord channels to ask if anyone knew what was happening. The whole situation created an atmosphere of fear and confusion.
The emotional impact on ZeniMax employees has been severe. One union member said the day of the layoffs was one of the worst workdays of their life. Many felt deep sadness, confusion, and anxiety as they waited to find out if they still had a job. The layoffs felt like a betrayal, as if the company cared more about shareholders than the people who had worked hard for years.
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Many called the process “inhumane,” especially the way longtime employees were given only minutes to say goodbye to coworkers they had known for years. The way careers were ended so abruptly was seen as heartless, leading to demands for a full review of how layoffs are handled. The whole experience has been compared to a traumatic event that will take time to recover from, both for those who lost their jobs and those who remain.
Microsoft Leadership Is Only Making Things Worse
There is a clear gap between Xbox’s leadership and the employees actually making the games. Phil Spencer, Matt Booty, and Sarah Bond, who have overseen multiple studio shutdowns and repeated layoffs after the Activision Blizzard merger, seem out of touch with what workers are going through.
Employees are begging for leadership to talk directly to the people doing the work, saying that mass emails, especially ones celebrating Xbox’s success while people are losing their jobs, feel empty and cruel. The way these layoffs keep being mishandled has destroyed trust, and many workers doubt leadership can ever earn it back.
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On a practical level, the layoffs have caused a huge loss of knowledge, making things much harder for the remaining employees. Years of experience disappeared overnight, leaving the survivors to handle the work of multiple people. This loss of talent has disrupted projects, since key people are suddenly gone.
Microsoft claims the cuts were meant to make workflows smoother and the company more flexible, but employees expect the opposite, that those left will have to work themselves to exhaustion to keep up the same quality.
The studio’s ability to keep making award-winning games is now in doubt, with some estimating it could take six months or more for remaining workers to fully take over the roles of those who were laid off. Working in what feels like a “graveyard,” where close friends and even partners have been let go, has crushed morale and made it hard for people to do their best work.
