Microsoft laid off Ray Lederer.
He and Adam Adamowicz were the two primary concept artists for Skyrim and Ray did extensive concept work for Fallout 4 and Starfield and did work on Fallout 76 as well.
Ilya Nazarov (primary Fallout 4 concept artist) made a very good decision when he decided to move to a different company a while back.
I wish Ray the literal absolute best and I hope he quickly finds work with an employer who respects him (unlike Microsoft)
You can hand waive the firing of some middle managers as "increasing efficiency" but there is literally no reason to fire such an unbelievable and tenured artist like Ray Lederer other than Microsoft deciding he was too expensive to keep paying.
An even more insidious interpretation is that the concept work on TES VI is done (we know Ray was working on it as of early last year) and now that the concept art is finished Microsoft has no need of him anymore...
If they even replace his position they'll probably probably just contract a young, talented, and naïve artist who doesn't know their worth and will get grossly under-paid by Microsoft
