Okay I've given a square day and a bit for the dust to settle, might as well talk about the heaviest topic to touch the gaming world in a very long while. Now I know, it doesn't really need any introduction as it has been spoken about by near everyone at this point; but I'm a stickler for silly and melodramatic introductions, you may have noticed. In that vein; there has been a disturbance in the industry. Have you felt it? A disruption in the truths that we hold so very dear, a change to the physical laws that we all diligently observe. Someone has made a move, the biggest of moves, the kind of move that changes things forever for for everyone involved, a move with ripples that will last far beyond this year. There's an expression I hear, that if something doesn't matter in five years than it's not worth thinking about, well I have a feeling that this event will last far past that threshold for mattering. And that is because earlier in this very week, the folk over at Microsoft acquired Zenimax; parent company of one Bethesda Softworks. (And, incidentally, her subsidiaries.)
I don't likely need to tell you that this ain't no bottom of the barrel garbage story, this is the absolute big one. In years past the Microsoft train has been a hard one to board when it comes to the realm of gaming, because of their difficulties in securing any significant first party talent to their studio and Sony's tendency to kick a dog when it's down. (And in doing so, kick the rest of the gaming industry in the face. Get a PC storefront Sony- you bunch of antiquated hacks!) The amount of great games that Xbox players missed out on in the last generation was staggering, and in comparison Playstation players missed out on basically nothing apart from Gears (a franchise that's gone on far past it's prime) State of Decay (A game that's always better in your memory than in play) and Sea of Thieves. (A decent enough title but with a really niche fanbase.) As such Microsoft announced their mission to start working on acquiring more first party studios to the 'family of Xbox' (Great name. Doesn't sound cultish at all...) so that the next generation wouldn't suck so bad.
Of course the question of "What does this all exactly mean" has been bouncing around the head of every armchair market analyst since the moment that blogpost appeared on Bethesda.net; and I'm no different in that regard. Who doesn't want to know a bit about the future of a studio that used to be their absolute favourite, in the industry that they love? Why, in such an instance I'd even say it's healthy to speculate, and so I'll take that as full leave to go nuts with my conspiracy theories. Okay, my first one; Bethesda were Aliens and this purchase it being run through Microsoft by the American Government as a sort of hush-job in order to en- oh wait, I should probably focus on my theories about how this effects the games... Well, Bethesda are the well-known creators and publishers of the much beloved Elder Scrolls franchise and the recently bruised Fallout franchise, but under them lies the studios behind Dishonoured, Wolfenstein and DOOM; making this a literal buyout of all the classics. What does this mean?
Well the obvious answer is 'nothing', at least not yet. Sony have made the act of studio acquisitions synonymous with stringent exclusivity policies, but such does not need to be so. When you strip away all the marketing nonsense about "ensuring our games run on the best hardware with the best ecosystem" there's really nothing technical holding back first party titles from jumping the gap, it's all just a powerplay. If Microsoft were in the lead coming into this generation then I have no doubt that they'd be just as bad as Sony and jealously hoard every multi-million dollar Bethesda franchise to themselves, but seeing as how Microsoft need to cement themselves in the running for gamer dominance again, I think it's just as likely for future Bethesda games to go to everyone. I mean, Bethesda announced this marriage whilst still being tied into two timed-exclusivity deals with Sony, that as far as I can tell they are still set on honouring, so this does lay the groundworks for the bare minimum of studio cooperation.
But let us play Devil's advocate for a moment and assume that Microsoft do lose their minds and decide to lock down Bethesda; what would that mean? Well, that would make The Elder Scrolls 6, Starfield, the next Fallout title, a third DOOM game and a third Wolfenstein, all Xbox exclusives. Now let me be absolutely clear, this is worlds better than if Sony somehow managed to seal this deal and went the same direction with it. Why? Simple; because Microsoft have a policy that everyone of their first party games launches simultaneously on PC, meaning there's no awkward scenario where DOOM's incredibly loyal PC base is locked out from their game. Yes, maybe it'll mean that the game won't come out on Steam right away, but everyone pretty much has the Microsoft store installed so it's not like they'll have to share their data with yet another greedy storefront. (Of course, this would mean that Microsoft would have to improve some things with their PC store, like separating how it treats Apps and Games so that we can actually access our our freakin' game directories. (Actually- fix that anyway Microsoft; goddamn!)
That's enough speculation, let's talk about the good and potential benefits this deal has going for it right now! First of all, this makes it so that all Bethesda games are now becoming permanent main-stays of Microsoft Gamepass, yet further increasing the value of this ludicrously inexpensive service. What's more, this really shows up Sony who have voiced how they don't see the value of making a similar service for the Playstation. (It's not 'sustainable' in their eyes) This also means that future Bethesda games will launch on Gamepass for no extra charge. (my mind struggles at how incredible that sounds.) Whatsmore, this deal puts Obsidian and Bethesda under the same roof which, as many have pointed out, opens the path for a potential Fallout New Vegas 2. (Such a proposition deserves a blog of its own to go over.) Now Obsidian were directly asked on Twitter about this possibility and they merely offered a shrug emoji, which is a good as tacit approval if I squint my eyes really tightly!
It's with tentative and provisional optimism that I fall in favour of this new acquisition. Knowing where Bethesda currently sits as a wounded-reputation studio, next to the struggling Xbox studios, I think that hardship will birth a positive growth for both parties. Although I guess I could be totally off-base and this'll end up spawning an age of power-drunk studio tyranny on Microsoft's end, but I'm choosing to ignore that very real possibility in the hopes that doing so makes it somehow less likely. I just ultimately hope for a future where games aren't split down the middle in console battle lines and Bethesda get held to some quality assurance standards. Here's hoping this is the advent of one of those policies, if not both.
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