Just started playing this game.  Probably the ugliest fun game I have played to date.

I dig that description.

Thats because Sony made this whole thing about COD which was their biggest mistake.  It basically played into MS hands because MS is more than happy to accept concessions that keep making them money.  Basically they played themselves probably because they miscalculated MS intentions and direction.

Don't think the hiring freeze affected Zenimax since they're technically treated as a separate entity, I'm speculating there but when Xbox's hiring plummeted to near 0, Zenimax still had hundreds of jobs available and I know in many ways, Zenimax is a separate entity, so Activision-Blizzard will likely be the same.

There's stuff like, Zenimax's HR being different to Microsoft's and their employee benefits being different because they're under Zenimax and not Microsoft, it's weird. But then it seems like Zenimax is being made to abide by Microsoft's union contract too so, Lol. I don't know, I just know the hiring freeze didn't touch Zenimax at all, Lol.

Damn, that has to be a record for the franchise!

I always thought that ZeniMax the holding company, and Bethesda Softworks the publisher, should be dissolved and have all the studios just under XGS with management of Bethesda transitioned to similar positions under Xbox. Just so that Xbox can be as unified as possible. It would definitely help marketing lol. But I'm now thinking that it's probably better it turned out the way it did lol

Especially with how many "Phil is a corporate hack" comments I've read