The Wasteland has gone union. In the wake of Microsoft’s sweeping Xbox layoffs – which eliminated over 3,200 jobs across its gaming division – modders have taken to Fallout 4 and Skyrim to voice their solidarity with affected developers.
The protest mods were created by Emmi “Elianora” Junkkari and greenFoxel. Two separate releases are now live on PC: One for All and All for One – Support the Devs and Unified Front – save our devs. Both packs add pro-union placards, demonstration banners and anti-layoff signs bearing slogans to Fallout 4‘s world. Beyond signs, the mods also include t-shirts, jackets, power armour and a pip-boy skin branded with the OneBGS logo – the CWA-affiliated Bethesda Game Studios union.
The Layoffs Behind the Protest
The mods are a direct response to Microsoft’s July 6 announcement of roughly 3,200 Xbox job eliminations, 440 of which were union-represented positions across Bethesda Game Studios, ZeniMax Online Studios, id Software, ZeniMax Workers United QA, and ZeniMax corporate.
Former Bethesda Studios project lead Jeff Gardiner claimed that id Software lost 95 employees, while Bethesda Game Studios laid off 35 workers. Cuts also included around 100 layoffs at id Software and more than 200 at The Elder Scrolls Online studio ZeniMax Online.
The layoffs were confirmed internally and publicly on Monday, July 15, when multiple sources across Bethesda, ZeniMax Online Studios, and id Software were informed their jobs were being eliminated during a video call with management. At id Software’s Texas office alone, the call announcing 136 redundancies reportedly lasted under 60 seconds.
Rallies in the Real World
OneBGS organised a coordinated “Save Our Devs” march across all four of its studio locations on July 15, 2026, at 12:30 PM Eastern, protesting the elimination of the 440 union positions. In-person protests took place in Dallas (id Software), Austin (Bethesda), Montreal (Bethesda), Rockville (Bethesda) and Irvine (Obsidian Entertainment), with the CWA’s United Videogame Workers branch also organising a rally at the Microsoft campus in Redmond, Washington.
OneBGS is the CWA-affiliated Bethesda Game Studios union that represents workers behind Fallout, Starfield, and Elder Scrolls. The CWA’s District 6 vice president Derrick Osobase argued that the affected studios were responsible for franchises central to Xbox’s commercial identity, warning that the cuts would have knock-on consequences for players as well as workers.
OneBGS employees had set up memorials in office common areas for their laid-off colleagues, only to be told by HR to take them down.
Mods as Meaningful Protest
The modding community’s response mirrors real-world union iconography and follows a similar Skyrim mod that launched alongside it. For players unable to attend a physical rally, sharing screenshots or saves of Fallout 4 and Skyrim with the union imagery present has been encouraged as a form of digital solidarity.
According to Bloomberg, Bethesda is set to undergo a significant overhaul and will pivot to focus on its biggest franchises: Fallout, The Elder Scrolls, Doom, Quake, and Wolfenstein. That makes Fallout 4 a pointed canvas for the protest – the series sits at the heart of Microsoft’s stated “reset” strategy, even as the people who built it are being let go.
Whether the mods change any minds in Redmond is unlikely. But they do what the best Fallout content always has: use the fiction of a broken society to comment on the real one.
Get Fallout 4
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Fallout 4 is available now on PC – pick it up for [price] and explore the modding community’s growing library of protest content.