After the surprise and massive announcement last year that Bethesda and its studios were being acquired by Xbox comes word that deal is done and finalised -- with Bethesda's parent company Zenimax Media now a part of Microsoft. Long story short, all of Bethesda's eight development studios from across the world are now first-party Xbox studios.

Which includes Bethesda Game Studios, id Software, ZeniMax Online Studios, Arkane, MachineGames, Tango Gameworks, Alpha Dog, and Roundhouse Studios. And all of the games and franchises that entails, like The Elder Scrolls, DOOM, Fallout, Quake, Wolfenstein, Prey, Dishonored, and more.



"Now that everything is official, we can begin working together to deliver more great games to everyone," writes Phil Spencer, Head of Xbox in today's announcement. "Our goal is to give these teams the best foundation for doing their greatest work and to learn from them as we continue to build Xbox into an inclusive platform for all players."

Phil Spencer notes that Xbox consoles, PC, and Game Pass will be the best place for future Bethesda titles noting that "some new titles in the future will be exclusive to Xbox and PC players". Which naturally puts a question mark over Starfield, The Elder Scrolls VI, the next Wolfenstein, or even the next DOOM. In the meantime additional Bethesda games will be added to Xbox Game Pass later this week -- with details on exactly what expected soon.

Today though is all about the announcement, with Bethesda's Pete Hines also writing, "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."

With both leaders also paying tribute to Bethesda founder Robert Altman who recently passed away.