Zenimax Online Studios is already struggling following Microsoft’s horrendous layoffs. Alongside Id Software, ZOS suffered the brunt of Xbox’s cuts with around half of the studio kicked to the curb. This came after 2025’s layoffs which also saw heavy cuts to the Elder Scrolls Online developer.
In the days after Xbox’s layoffs, developers from the ESO team claimed that the MMO may struggle to function due to the breadth of Microsoft’s cuts. As it turns out, that’s already starting to happen as the MMO studio is struggling with its “bandwidth” just weeks after its titanic reduction in staff.
In a message to fans, Elder Scrolls Online community manager Kevin Gbolie announced that they are changing features to reduce workload. As the team continues to find out what bandwidth they can work with other features may come and go, but right now the game’s Web Crown Store is going offline.
“To help manage workload, we have decided to remove the Web Crown Store from the official elderscrollsonline.com website,” Gbolie told fans. Admittedly, this is a small feature to be removed, but it shows that the team’s cuts mean that there simply aren’t enough employees to maintain even small options for fans.
“”he ability to acquire crowns via the website will remain, and, of course, this does not affect the items that will be offered on the Crown Store in The Elder Scrolls Online, you will just need to login into the game to view and purchase the latest offerings,” Gbolie said.
Alongside the web version of the Crown Store, Zenimax Online Studios is changing how the blog works. In prior blogs, new Crown Store items were shown off with high-quality screenshots and dense descriptions, but they will now simply release as a bullet point list. Gbolie claimed that these changes, and future ones that have not been announced, are due tot he slimmed down “team bandwidth”.
“The team responsible for the blog and those screenshots doesn’t have the capacity to provide those at the scale we could before,” he said in a forum post. (Thanks, GR.) “But we will provide what we can for now and adjust from there.”
This is sadly just the start of changes for Elder Scrolls Online. While these may seem like superfluous features, they were used by fans. The Web Crown Store was a great option, and the MMO’s in-depth blog posts were fantastic. These may seem like obvious functions to cut down on, but it’s also a sign that many smaller features within the MMO may be changed or even gutted to accommodate a much smaller workforce.
Alongside continued work on the MMO, which is returning to Skyrim in 2027, Zenimax Online Studios may also be split across projects. The MMO studio is reportedly set to assist Bethesda Game Studios with the development of The Elder Scrolls 6, cutting even more workers away from The Elder Scrolls Online.
