Microsoft announced back in September it had purchased ZeniMax Media , which owns Bethesda and id Software, among other companies, for $7.5 billion. This dealt a massive blow to Sony in the console war leading up to the next-gen release this month. The acquisition, which should finish up sometime in 2021, gives Microsoft exclusive rights to the majority of Bethesda's best franchises, including Fallout , DOOM , and The Elder Scrolls , in addition to Bethesda's upcoming space RPG Starfield . Bethesda will still retain a certain degree of autonomy as developers will be able to publish titles for PlayStation on a "case by case" basis. However, Microsoft has gained a huge advantage in taking exclusivity of Bethesda's strongest tit

If that is indeed the case, it may herald a gradual overhaul of how players purchase and play games. It could lead to a phase out of physical and digital one-time purchase copies in favor of monthly subscription streaming services. Bethesda's status as a prolific studio with a considerable degree of clout may make it the standard bearer for such a revolution, or at the very least, the forerunner in Microsoft's ongoing studio acquisition campa

A supposed leak of Starfield gameplay|https://starfieldgalaxy.com/ screenshots may have just been verified by the unlikeliest of sources: a t-shirt worn by a Bethesda developer. The screenshots in question leaked in September, offering a brief glimpse at a possible player character, a spaceship design, and the HUD of Starfield . Bethesda has neither confirmed nor denied the validity of the leak to d

Recently, Howard took part in a Develop:Brighton Conference . During a conversation with James Batchelor of GamesIndustry.biz, Howard revealed that while Starfield and The Elder Scrolls 6 are still a ways off, they'll be available on Xbox Game Pass on the first day of their respective releases. This confirms speculation on how Bethesda would handle its future releases . Howard also dropped a few more tidbits about the two anticipated titles, including that Starfield will eschew multiplayer in favor of a singleplayer format and will be in a universe even bigger than Fallout

It is no secret that the Bethesda purchase is a huge deal for Microsoft but, with no other anticipated first party titles apparent on the horizon, the transaction will carry a lot more weight this year. While Microsoft has not hinted one way or another about Bethesda games' fate on other consoles, Phil Spencer has made it clear that there is not a financial need for Microsoft to make cross-platform Bethesda games going forw

It's hard to say exactly what this will mean for the games until fans can learn anything at all about them. Howard mentions that the next-gen technology is " optimized for the vast worlds we love to create ," and given Bethesda's commitment to producing larger worlds for each successive game in the Elder Scrolls franchise, it can likely be expected that both of the upcoming titles will feature open worlds on a truly impressive scale . The precise details of what else these new engine overhauls will bring are completely unkn

The announcements of Starfield and The Elder Scrolls 6 generated a lot of excitement among fans, but the long silence has dampened things pretty considerably. Bethesda swears that Starfield will be worth the long wait , but before too long, it's going to have to give fans something. This engine overhaul is worth getting excited about, to be sure, but it still pales in comparison to any actual, solid news on either Starfield or The Elder Scrolls

This development raises a lot of questions about the future of a lot of Bethesda projects. The two biggest Bethesda games on the horizon, Starfield and The Elder Scrolls 6 , were both announced back in 2018 during E3. Both projects got brief announcement trailers, and both fell to radio silence over the two years that have passed since, with only brief indications they're still in development serving as news updates. The Microsoft buyout makes the status of Starfield and TES 6 on PS5 unclear, too, which is further complicating the fact that fans still know next to nothing about either g

Bethesda has confirmed that it is fully focused on the development of both Starfield and The Elder Scrolls VI . Replying to fan concerns on Twitter about the fact that Todd Howard is involved with too many projects, Bethesda Senior VP of Marketing Pete Hines reassured them that those two titles are still his main priority. Howard, who has helped to lead both the Fallout and The Elder Scrolls series for more than a decade, also has roles in several other projects according to Hines. But both he and Bethesda as a whole are committed to finishing up work on the two high-profile games. The communications executive promised that recent announcements will not affect the development of either g

Howard remained as tight-lipped as ever about a release date for either title, only saying it'll " be a while. " This could mean years, but it could very well mean months, considering Howard's been historically blasé about release dates that ended up happening less than a year later. The implication of two major titles being available on the very first day of their release makes a pretty strong case for the notion Game Pass subscribers will have immediate access to all future Bethesda titles. It's just as possible those same subscribers will essentially never have to pay outright for a Bethesda game in the future, as long it's an Xbox exclusive (which quite a few of them will