Earlier this month, Xbox announced a wave of layoffs unlike anything the company had seen before. Every studio under the company has been affected, and if someone hasn't been sold outright or let go, they've suffered brutal layoffs that you'd argue they might not be able to come back from. It's a very broad wave, and we're letting go of some huge talent.
To show just how deep these layoffs go, it has been revealed that a senior character artist who worked at Bethesda for 27 years and left an indelible mark on The Elder Scrolls was also recently fired.
Xbox recently scratched and closed the designer of Argonian
Among those departing was character artist Kristian Meister — a 27-year veteran of Bethesda and (as far as I can tell) one of the longest-serving women in games. She worked on Argonians + Khajiit in TES3, horses in TES4 and TES5, Fallout creatures and more. (continued) — Lady Nerevar (@ladynerevar.bsky.social) 2026-07-07T21:51:43.381Z
First noticed by BlueSky user Lady Nerever (thanks PC Gamer), Kristian Meister has worked on every modern Elder Scrolls game, having worked on Khajiit and Argonians in Morrowind before moving on to Horses in Oblivion and Skyrim. She has also worked on creatures for the Fallout franchise, and has been an important part of Bethesda for nearly three decades.
She also gave her original creations a bit of a makeover for Skyrim, helping transform the Argonians and Khajit from fearsome beasts into the Argonians and Khajit we all love and know today.
It's a huge loss for Bethesda and Xbox as a whole, and a layoff that doesn't make much sense in the grand scheme of things. You have to assume you'll welcome the level of expertise in The Elder Scrolls 6, but then again, most of what Xbox is doing right now doesn't make sense outside of a few spreadsheets.
Hopefully, Meister can find some more work soon, though she has a pretty impressive resume to fall back on if needed. Not everyone can point to a run of the Elder Scrolls and say “I did that”, and Meister certainly deserved a lot better than what she sadly got.
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2026
- ESRB
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m
- developer(s)
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Bethesda Game Studio
- publisher(s)
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Bethesda Softworks
