'I find myself in the novel position of looking for a job' — 27-year Bethesda veteran who designed Skyrim's humanoid races and a Microsoft dev behind Xbox backwards compatibility have been laid off | Tech Radar
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'I find myself in the novel position of looking for a job' — 27-year Bethesda veteran who designed Skyrim's humanoid races and a Microsoft dev behind Xbox backwards compatibility have been laid off
Christiane Meister was a Bethesda artist for 27 years, and Kevin La Chapelle worked at Microsoft for 37 years
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Senior Bethesda character artist Christiane Meister has been laid off as part of Xbox's restructuring
Meister designed Skyrim's Khajiit and Argonian races
Kevin La Chapelle, one of the lead developers behind Xbox's backward compatibility initiative, has also been laid off
As part of Xbox's most significant restructuring strategy we've ever seen, thousands of staff have been laid off, including two industry veterans who worked at Microsoft and Bethesda for decades.
As PC Gamer reports, Christiane Meister, a senior character artist who worked at Bethesda for 27 years on games like Morrowind and Skyrim, was laid off and is currently looking for work.
Writing on Linked In, Meister said, "I have recently been laid off from Bethesda Game Studios and I find myself in the novel position of looking for a job. I thought I would stay there forever because I loved making those games. Life had other plans as it so often does."
As Meister explained in a separate update on her page, she was "in charge of design, creation, and management of character art assets throughout all of The Elder Scrolls projects, starting with Morrowind to our latest title, Skyrim."
"This included drawing concepts and seeing the art piece through to the final stage of getting the object in the game as well as handing off concepts to other artists in the character group. I also oversaw outsourced assets from design to final in-game models," Meister said.
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The veteran developer was responsible for designing the visual identities of the series' khajiit and argonian humanoid races, as well as some Fallout creatures and horses in Oblivion and Skyrim.
She also worked on UI, title design, and marketing materials in her early career at Bethesda, the iconic armor associated with Skyrim, and new armor sets and the key art for The Elder Scrolls: Blades.
Meister later moved on to creature work on Starfield "and had a great time balancing the extraterrestrial while grounding it with recognizable fauna that exist here on Earth."
She adds that she also worked on "The latest game of the Elder Scrolls series," which could mean The Elder Scrolls 6, where she oversaw "an important aspect of the game as well as continuing to create realistic creatures."
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Another industry veteran, Kevin La Chapelle, one of the lead developers behind Xbox's backward compatibility initiative, has also been laid off.
On Linked In (via VGC), La Chapelle said, "I will add my name to the list of people who were laid off today at Xbox," after working for Microsoft for 37 years.
"I have worked in many different parts of the company, and I will say my fondest memories are of leading the team of very talented engineers who built the Xbox Backward Compatibility program," he said.
"Sitting in the auditorium when Phil [Spencer] announced the program at E3 2015 was incredible. The audience's reaction was unbelievable. I followed that with leading the team who created our Cloud Gaming product. I am a firm believer that all entertainment will eventually become streamed to you wherever you are. I look forward to watching how Xbox evolves going forward and I wish the team nothing but success."
Xbox CEO Asha Sharma confirmed that 1,600 jobs were immediately cut and another 1,600 to come will follow before the end of the current financial year.
The company has also let go of four studios, including Compulsion Games and Double Fine Productions, which are returning to independence, while Ninja Theory and Undead Labs are currently looking for new ownership.
Obsidian Entertainment is also reportedly working on a new Fallout game led by Fallout: New Vegas lead designer and project director Joshua Sawyer, in collaboration with Bethesda, after scrapping plans for an Avowed sequel amid Xbox's restructuring strategy.
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Demi is a freelance games journalist who helps cover gaming news at Tech Radar. She's been a games writer for five years and has written for outlets such as Game Spot, NME, and Games Radar, covering news, features, and reviews. Outside of writing, she plays a lot of RPGs and talks far too much about Star Wars on X.
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