Bethesda Softworks

Bethesda Softworks is a developer and publisher of computer and video games, owned by ZeniMax Media.

Background
Bethesda Softworks has been a developer and publisher of interactive entertainment content for over two decades, founded in 1985 by Christopher Weaver.

With a broad panoply of games in role-playing, racing, simulation, and sports, Bethesda Softworks major franchises are distributed worldwide.

Divisions
Bethesda Game Studios (BGS) is the in-house development team led by Todd Howard and owned by Bethesda Softworks. Not all BGS titles are published by Bethesda Softworks. "Bethesda Softworks" is often used to designate games "published" by Bethesda, both BGS projects and those developed externally.

Fallout 3
In 2004, Bethesda licensed the rights to develop Fallout 3 and two additional sequels from Interplay Entertainment, and in 2007 acquired the whole Fallout franchise. Todd Howard said in January 2007 that "We started work (on Fallout 3) in late 2004 with a few people. We only had about 10 people on it until Oblivion wrapped, but most of our staff is on it now."

Fallout 3 was released on October 28, 2008 and has won over 60 Game of the Year Awards – including honours from IGN, the Game Developers' Choice Awards and Game Critics Awards. Bethesda has continued to support Fallout 3 with five add-ons – Operation: Anchorage, The Pitt, Broken Steel, Point Lookout and Mothership Zeta.

Fallout: New Vegas
In 2009, Bethesda announced Fallout: New Vegas, a new entry in the Fallout series. Developed by Obsidian Entertainment and published by Bethesda itself, it was released on October 19, 2010 in the US and October 22 in the UK. It is important to note that Bethesda did not make New Vegas, they only published it. On January 28, Bethesda Softworks announced a deal made with Namco Bandai to let it publish Fallout: New Vegas in Europe, Australia and New Zealand.

Bethesda was also the publisher of the four Fallout: New Vegas add-ons: Dead Money, Old World Blues, Lonesome Road and Honest Hearts.

Other games
Other notable series by Bethesda Softworks include The Elder Scrolls, the series of which Oblivion is the 9th title and the 4th main title. Fallout 3 and New Vegas are based on the same engine as Oblivion. They also published other games such as WET, Rogue Warrior and RAGE.

Skyrim
Bethesda's latest game, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim was released on November 11, 2011 for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. The game was met with critical acclaim upon its release garnering a number of awards including The Spike Video Game Awards Game Of The Year award.