Bethesda Game Studios

Bethesda Game Studios (BGS) is an American video game developer and a division of Bethesda Softworks based in Rockville, Maryland. The company was established in 2001 as the spin-off of Bethesda Softworks' development unit, with Bethesda Softworks itself retaining only a publishing function. The studio is led by Todd Howard as executive producer and Ashley Cheng as studio director. BGS operates two satellite studios: Bethesda Game Studios Montreal, in Montreal, Quebec, was founded in December 2015, and Bethesda Game Studios Austin, in Austin, Texas, became part of BGS after it was corporately re-arranged in March 2018. As of February 2017, BGS employed 180 staff in its Rockville and Montreal studios.

History
In 2001, ZeniMax Media, the parent company of Bethesda Softworks, decided that the two operational units at Bethesda Softworks, development and publishing, should be split apart. Subsequently, Bethesda Softworks retained the publishing, while development staff was moved to the newly established Bethesda Game Studios.

On December 9, 2015, ZeniMax Media announced the formation Bethesda Game Studios Montreal, a new BGS studio located in Montreal, Quebec. Led by Yves Lachance, the former head of Behaviour Interactive, the studio was set to broaden BGS' portfolio of games across all gaming platforms.

On March 9, 2018, Austin, Texas-based BattleCry Studios, another ZeniMax Media subsidiary, was rebranded as Bethesda Game Studios Austin and thus became part of BGS.

On August 10, 2018, Escalation Studios was rebranded as Bethesda Game Studios Dallas.

Games developed
Since its foundation, Bethesda Game Studios has principally been involved in the development of role-playing video games with their The Elder Scrolls and Fallout series for consoles and personal computers, all of which have been commercially and financially successful.

In 2015, the studio entered into the mobile gaming market with Fallout Shelter based on the same franchise, which gained 50 million players by mid-2016. In February 2017, Howard said that they are in development of another mobile title following onto the success of Fallout Shelter. This was revealed in 2018 to be The Elder Scrolls: Blades.

In 2016, Howard confirmed that while they are developing The Elder Scrolls VI, it was still a long way to the game's release. Meanwhile, two other significant projects are in development which are expected to be released prior to The Elder Scrolls VI. On May 30, 2018, Fallout 76 was announced. On June 10, 2018, during Bethesda's E3 2018 conference, the other project in development was revealed to be the company's first new intellectual property in 25 years, Starfield, which is in production and is expected to be released on the next generation of gaming platforms. Todd Howard revealed that Fallout 76 was Bethesda Game Studios first online only role-playing survival game.

Awards

 * 2011 Spike Video Game Awards — Studio of the Year
 * 2015 The Game Awards — Developer of the Year (nominated)