Bethesda Game Studios

Bethesda Game Studios is an American video game developer and a studio of ZeniMax Media based in Rockville, Maryland. It is best known for its action role-playing franchises, including The Elder Scrolls, Fallout, and Starfield. Bethesda Game Studios opened in 2001 as the development unit of Bethesda Softworks, separating from publishing operations. Todd Howard serves as the studio's executive producer, leading it with managing director Ashley Cheng and studio director Angela Browder. As of November 2023, Bethesda Game Studios had 450 employees.[1]

History

Bethesda Game Studios was established in 2001. Previously, Bethesda Softworks, then a developer and publisher, had been reorganized as a subsidiary of ZeniMax Media. ZeniMax's Robert A. Altman sought to grow the development unit, which was spun off from Bethesda Softworks as Bethesda Game Studios, starting out with roughly 40 people.

Satellite studios

Bethesda Game Studios Austin

ZeniMax Media announced the opening of BattleCry Studios in Austin, Texas, on October 3, 2012, with Rich Vogel as its president.[14] The studio immediately began hiring developers with experience in microtransactions and free-to-play games, growing to roughly 35 employees by November 2013.[15][16] It announced its first project, the multiplayer combat game BattleCry, in May 2014.[17] However, the studio laid off a significant portion of its staff in September 2015, followed by the cancellation of BattleCry in October to focus on different projects.[18][19] Among these projects, it was tasked with modifying Bethesda Game Studios's Creation Engine to support multiplayer functionality for Fallout 76, working with another sister studio, id Software, and repurposed some netcode from Quake.[20] BattleCry Studios then assisted Bethesda Game Studios on the game itself and in August 2016 replaced Certain Affinity in assisting id Software to develop multiplayer components for Doom.[21][22] Vogel left BattleCry Studios by September 2017 to join Certain Affinity.[23] In March 2018, BattleCry Studios, now under studio director Doug Mellencamp, was integrated into Bethesda Game Studios and renamed Bethesda Game Studios Austin.[24]

Bethesda Game Studios Dallas

Tom Mustaine, Marc Tardif, and Shawn Green founded Escalation Studios in 2007.[25][26] Mustaine had previously co-founded Ritual Entertainment, while Tardif had been an executive producer and the senior vice president of business development at Gearbox Software.[27][28] In January 2012, the social gaming company 6waves Lolapps (6L) announced its acquisition of the studio on undisclosed terms.[26][29]

Bethesda Game Studios Montreal

Bethesda Game Studios announced the opening of a Montreal, Canada, office on December 9, 2015. At the time of the announcement, the studio employed 40 developers under studio director Yves Lachance.[35][36] Bethesda Game Studios had previously worked with Lachance on several projects while he was at Behaviour Interactive, including Fallout Shelter, which Bethesda Game Studios Montreal immediately took over.[35][37] In June 2024, the studio's developers announced their intent to unionize with support from the Canadian branch of the Communications Workers of America.[38] Lachance left the studio in July to lead WB Games Montréal.[39]

type	Division
industry	Video games
founded	2001
hq location city	Rockville, Maryland
hq location country	US
key people	Angela Browder (studio director) Ashley Cheng (managing director) Todd Howard (executive producer)
products	The Elder Scrolls series (2002–present) Fallout series (2008–present) Starfield (2023)
num locations	4
num employees	>500
num employees year	2026
parent	Bethesda Softworks
website	https://bethesdagamestudios.com/

Bethesda Game Studios

History

Unions

Technology

Satellite studios

Bethesda Game Studios Austin

Bethesda Game Studios Dallas

Bethesda Game Studios Montreal

Games developed

Expansion packs

Awards

External links

References