Tech giant Microsoft has completed its acquisition of ZeniMax Media, the company that owns gaming studio Bethesda. The acquisition was announced last year, but received the requisite regulatory approvals recently.
The acquisition is expected to bolster the library of exclusive games Microsoft offers on Windows and Xbox consoles, and the accompanying subscription services like Xbox GamePass and more.
“This is the next step in building an industry-leading first party studios team, a commitment we have to our Xbox community,” said Phil Spencer, Vice President of gaming at Microsoft, in a blog post. “With the addition of the Bethesda creative teams, gamers should know that Xbox consoles, PC, and Game Pass will be the best place to experience new Bethesda games, including some new titles in the future that will be exclusive to Xbox and PC players,” he added.
Bethesda is the company behind big ticket games like Doom, Fallout, The Elder Scroll and Wolfenstein series. The company said it will have more resources through Microsoft but doesn’t expect any big changes otherwise. Bethesda marketing head, Pete Hines, said the company will be “working on” putting more of its games on Game Pass.
“First, let me say that we’re not making any landmark announcements or changes right now. As we’ve all shared, the expectation is that Bethesda Softworks and our studios will continue as we have in the past, just with more support and resources than we’ve ever had before. Obviously, Game Pass has been an important initiative for Xbox, and we’ll be working on putting even more of our games into Game Pass than ever before. Beyond that? Stay tuned, we’re just getting started together,” said Hines in a different blog post.
Further, the acquisition of Bethesda will be in the same way Microsoft did for companies like Mojang, LinkedIn and GitHub. While the studio is now owned by the Windows-maker, it will run as a separate company and all its current leadership will remain in place. Microsoft is also going to own studios like Arkane (which made the game Dishonoured), MachineGames (which made Wolfenstein), ID Software (that made Doom) and other studios that fall under Bethesda.