In one of the largest gaming mergers of the decade, Microsoft has reached a deal with Bethesda, purchasing the company for a total of 7.5 billion dollars.

While not finalized, Microsoft, on Monday, September 21st has announced that it has reached a deal with Zenimax Media. This includes its subsidiary, Bethesda Game Studios in its purchase. And will be expected to fully merge with them by the second half of 2021’s fiscal year. This is Microsoft’s biggest video game acquisition in history. Being triple the price of their formally most expensive acquisition of a game company. The purchase of Mojang, which was 2.5 billion dollars. This also puts it in second place for the most expensive video game company merger ever. With it only being beaten out by an 8.6 billion dollar deal between Tencent and Supercell.

College students all around the world play games made by both Microsoft and Bethesda. But the absorption of Bethesda into Microsoft may mean that some students will now be unable to. Students that primarily play on the PlayStation 5 will now find many games they were looking forward to unable to be played.

This deal will grow the Xbox Gaming Studios from 15 to 23 different creative teams. All of them working on different projects for the newly announced Xbox Series X and its alternative, the Series S. Since 2018 Microsoft has purchased or created 10 different studios to gain more titles for their consoles, now including Bethesda.

What does this mean for Bethesda?

In all actuality, it is not likely that any major changes to any of Bethesda’s intellectual properties will occur. These properties include the Doom series, the Wolfenstein series, and the Elder Scrolls Series, among others. What will change is the availability of these games. Bethesda Executive Producer Todd Howard has said that they have no intention of excluding other game consoles from their sales. Stating “This one is about more than one system or one screen.” However, future games have already been planned to be part of Microsoft’s Game Pass service. While other exclusive deals with Microsoft’s competitor, Sony, will be honored. The game’s that were going to be exclusive to the new PlayStation 5, such as Deathloop and Ghostwire: Tokyo are now going to be turned into “timed exclusives”. Which bodes well for eagerly awaiting fans of those games who had not wished to buy a PlayStation 5.

Regardless, this is one of the biggest moves into the gaming industry that Microsoft has made in a long time. Many were beginning to feel that Microsoft was falling behind Sony in the “Console Wars.” Only time will tell if the purchase of Bethesda is what was needed to bring Microsoft back into the game.

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