bethesa-softworks posts

While folks can purchase Fallout: New Vegas as a boxed retail version, the PC port of the upcoming post-apocalypse RPG will also be available via download. If you swing that way publisher Bethesda Softworks has teamed up with several retailers to offer special pre-order offers if you buy the game via download.

GameStop, Amazon, Best Buy, and Walmart will all have their own unique pre-orders specials for the PC download version (Steam's pre-order offer will be the same as Walmart). Each consist of exclusive in-game items (armor, weapons, etc) that will become available when the game is released this fall. Check out the specifics of each pre-order offer after the jump:

Yep, that headlne is correct. Bethesda Softworks's parent company ZeniMax Media had announced that it has acquired Dallas-based developer id Software, creators of some of the biggest PC game franchises of all time (Doom, Quake and Wolfenstein). Financial terms were not disclosed but the press release states that id will continue to operate under its founder John Carmack with the press release stating, "All the principals at id Software have signed long-term employment contracts."

Bethesda Softworks will now be the publisher for all of id Software's upcoming games with the exception of titles that already have publishing agreements. That means Rage will continue to be published by EA but Doom IV will now be a Bethesda Softworks title. We hope to have more info on this unexpected business deal later today.

Update: Kotaku has a little more info on the deal, revealing that id had actually approached ZeniMax Media about being bought out and that acquistion talks had started months ago. With the deal now complete id will be able to add teams to their game projects. It also quotes id founder John Camack as saying, "We're really getting kind of tired competing with our own publishers in terms of how our titles will be featured." The new deal with ZeniMax will solve that problem with Carmack saying, "They are triple A, top-of-the-line in what they do in the RPGs. And they have no overlap with all the things we do in the FPSes."

During Spike TV's E3 special earlier this evening they showed the first CGI teaser trailer for Brink, the newly revealed game from developer Splash Damage and publisher Bethesda Softworks. The teaser web site has also launched which basically features the trailer and not much else.

Gameplay was not shown but it appears that Brink is a sci-fi title set on a world where some unknown beings have built an "ark" that was designed to be the pinnacle of their civilization. However it looks like some kind of battle is also raging for the "ark's" survival. It also looks like some kind of environmental battle is also going on from the looks of the web site's background image. Brink is set for release for spring 2010 for the PC and other platforms and we should get to see the game in action at E3 2009 next week.

With the released last week of Operation Anchorage, the first of three planned downloadable expansions for the acclaimed RPG Fallout 3, many wondered if the other two announced expansions would be released as scheduled in February and March. As it turns out, that won't be the case at all.

Gamespot is reporting via Bethesda Softworks that the next expansion for Fallout 3, The Pitt, will now be released via download in March instead of this month. The third and final DLC for the game, Broken Steel (the one that actually extends the main game's storyline),is now scheduled for a April release instead of March.

Earlier this week we reported that the government of Australia has decided not to give a rating to Bethesda Softworks' upcoming RPG Fallout 3. That effectively bans the sale of the game in that country, something that has been done to a number of US developed games. While Bethesda has yet to comment on the situation, Kotaku Australia has gotten more info on the decision to ban the game.

According to documents from the country's Office of Film and Literature Classification, Fallout 3 was banned because of its depiction of drug use. The game's use of "chems" to boost various stats in the player character and their possible addictive nature, combined with their visual representations ("syringes, tablets, pill bottles, a crack-type pipe and blister packs") was the reason behind the ban. There's no word yet if Bethesda will appeal the ban or change the game to get its approval (something that has been done for other games in the past).

Have you ever heard of the adventure game Limbo of the Lost? Neither had we, until Wednesday when a gaming web site noted while checking out a build of the game that some of its assets may have been lifted completely from Bethesda Softworks' Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. Now Blue's News is reporting that the publisher of the game, TriSynergy, is claiming that it had no idea the game had this kind of issue until it was pointed out in the gaming press.

TriSynergy claims that it would have never have released the game had it known of these issues (it's available for purchase online and in selected retail outlets) and are contacting the developers at Majestic Studios to get more info. As we have noted before, this development team's web site is actually hosted by, of all places, Geocities, and is now currently offline (most likely due to the high amount of traffic it has received since this contraversy broke out). It should also be noted that this game has reportedly been in development longer than Duke Nukem Forever; according to an article at Just Adventure it was supposedly started in the 1990s as an Amiga game. With that kind of development time you would think they would have had plenty of time to make their own art assets.