Fast forward over a quarter of a century of Bethesda: from The Elder Scrolls to Fallout to Rage

Most gamers these days will probably equate the name Bethesda with The Elder Scrolls RPG series. This is hardly surprising, after all, RPG titles such as Morrowind, Oblivion or Skyrim not only shaped the video game market, but also embody what is probably the software giant’s most successful franchise. The fact that Bethesda has more to offer than just The Elder Scrolls series is not only proven by the studio’s first eight years, but above all by the last two years, in which the former game developer appeared more and more often as a publisher. Over the past 25 years, the small studio in Maryland has blossomed into a large media group that unites numerous game developers and franchises under its banner. However, the founders of The Elder Scrolls have never forgotten their roots.

Before we continue: In our gallery – Wayne Gretzky Hockey to Skyrim – The most successful games from more than 25 years of Bethesda

Sports sims, film adaptations and an RPG veteran – The early years of Bethesda

The founder and former head of Bethesda should only be known to video game veterans: Christopher Weaver, who resigned from all operational positions in 2002, founded the company in 1986 in the community of Bethesda near Washington DC. Today’s role-playing forge initially focused primarily on sports simulations and film adaptations, only eight years after it was founded The Elder Scrolls Arena the first role-playing game released. However, Bethesda was also able to celebrate its first successes very quickly in the field of sports games: The first release Gridiron! was the first physics-based sports simulation for the Atari ST, Commodore Amiga and Commodore 64. No wonder that, according to Christopher Weaver, the former President of Electronic Arts, Trip Hawkins, contacted Bethesda and asked for a cooperation for a new sports game asked This game would become the best-selling football series of all time and was named John Madden Football.

Wayne Gretzky Hockey, 1988

Source: mobygames.com






Another success of the first years was the Wayne Gretzky Hockeyseries first published in 1988. The games press in particular was enthusiastic about the possibilities on the field, as well as the possibility of creating your own players and teams and leading them to the championship. While the first two titles of Bethesda didn’t have much to do with the later figurehead, the action title The Terminator could already find the first bonds to The Elder Scrolls Arena: A freely accessible world that even has distinctive points from Los Angeles like reflected Dodger Stadium or Griffith Park, side actions like stealing cars and the first-person perspective would also play a permanent role in Bethesda’s first RPG. In the years that followed, Bethesda continued to focus on sports games, Terminator conversions, and released other video game adaptations such as Home Alone and Where’s Waldo. In addition, in 1990, the company’s headquarters were relocated from Bethesda to Rockville, Maryland.

In 1994, the game company would then publish one of the pioneering titles in the role-playing genre: The Elder Scrolls Arena. Already in the first part of the well-known game series numerous components can be found that make even the 2011 released Skyrim so popular: Free character development, different races with different attributes, fights in real time and a huge, freely exploreable game world. In Arena, the user could even explore all of Tamriel, which was no longer possible in the following parts. There were no level limits, so the player could run in a certain direction for an endless amount of time. The game automatically generated more and more land, but you had to select the up to 400 cities using the fast travel function. Even then, The Elder Scrolls Arena was able to win over the gaming press, the German PC Player, for example, distributed 82 out of 100 points for the RPG veteran. Bethesda itself also grew into a large game company in these years, which can be seen above all in the published titles: 13 games were developed and distributed by Bethesda from 1994 to 1999, including other Terminator and sports games as well as The Elder Scrolls II and two Daggerfall Addons to the roleplaying game.

ZeniMax and the breakthrough for The Elder Scrolls Morrowind – Bethesda from 1999 to 2006

The year 1999 marked a clear turning point in Bethesda’s history. That year, Christopher Weaver and attorney Robert A. Altman founded the media group ZeniMax Media in order to gain a foothold in other media areas. The decisive step has been taken, Bethesda, or much more ZeniMax, is now publishing and distributing games developed by another studio for the first time. Of course, this development also resulted in some changes within the company: Bethesda Softworks LLC was now used as a publisher for video games under the banner of ZeniMax Media, and in 2001 Bethesda Game Studios was the first in-house developer to be founded, which mainly deals with the The Elder Scrolls series and is led by developer legend Todd Howard. In addition, games from the studios Virgin Interactive, Mythos Games, Akella, Buka Entertainment and Altron were published, but they were only moderately successful.

The Elder Scrolls III Morrowind, 2002 (here with mods by BlackF0g)

Source: forum-3dcenter.org






Then, in 2003, Vir2L Studios emerged, a studio founded by ZeniMax that focused primarily on handheld and mobile games. Until 2006, Bethesda had notable successes as a publisher, above all with the titles Echelon, Sea Dogs, Call of Cthulhu Dark Corners of the Earth and Pirates of the Caribbean. However, the great success was denied to The Elder Scrolls III Morrowind, developed by Bethesda and distributed together with Ubisoft. The role-playing game caused a real boom in 2002 and is still considered by many fans to be the best part of the entire series. The reason for this, in addition to the huge and optically sophisticated game world, was the abundance of possible actions. The game world was already large in The Elder Scrolls Arena, but now it has been filled with life: Numerous guilds gave the player orders, hundreds of dungeons wanted to be explored and the main story provided plenty of excitement. Other important features were the two-part skill system and the possibility of changing the behavior of the NPCs through a good reputation. Various GotY and Platinum editions of Morrowind were released up until 2004.

Bethesda as a major publisher and the success of Oblivion, Fallout and Skyrim – the years 2006 to the present

In contrast to 1999, 2006 cannot be regarded as a major turning point in Bethesda’s company history. Nevertheless, the course for the future company orientation of the publisher and the developer Bethesdas is already being set this year. On the one hand, the in-house developer Bethesda Game Studios is now only concentrating on role-playing games, sports simulations or film adaptations. On the other hand, Bethesda Softworks is now increasingly concentrating on selling blockbuster titles as a publisher. Four Star Trek games, which were published between 2006 and 2007 and developed by external studios, mark the beginning of the new sales strategy. Furthermore, Bethesda takes over the Japanese distribution of Rockstars Bully and tries to establish its own brands on the games market with Rogue Warrior and WET. In 2007 ZeniMax Online Studios was also founded, which mainly deals with the development of MMOs.

In 2009, the development studios id Software (including Doom and Quake) and MachineGames (former founders of Starbreeze Studios) were bought by ZeniMax. Arkane Studios (Arx Fatalis, Dark Messiah of Might and Magic) and Tango Gameworks (Shinji Mikami) followed in 2010. The portfolio of distributed games also grew rapidly: Fallout New Vegas, Brink, Hunted The Demon’s Forge and RAGE were released under the Bethesda banner between 2010 and 2011. In this

The Elder Scrolls 5 Skyrim, 2011.

Source: Bethesda

Two more blockbuster titles, Dishonored and Prey 2, are also set to appear this year. And what has the game developer Bethesda Game Studios been up to in the meantime? In five years, the Americans developed a total of only three role-playing titles with associated addons and DLCs. However, these three games were among the best RPG titles in recent video game history, after all, Bethesda had huge success with The Elder Scrolls IV Oblivion, Fallout 3 and The Elder Scrolls V Skyrim.

Fans and trade press alike were enthusiastic about the open game worlds, the freedom of choice and the exciting stories that each of the three parts undoubtedly offered. Future projects of the game company are not yet known, but an addon to Skyrim is likely to appear soon. The next full-price title, on the other hand, will be a long time coming, but fans of the series can rest easy: Even if the titles distributed by Bethesda, such as RAGE or Brink, could not meet expectations, the in-house forge Bethesda Game Studios has delivered in the past Always top games that RPG fans and the trade press have been enthusiastic about for years.