50 Fun Facts About Bethesda Softworks

Which Friends star worked briefly at Bethesda Softworks in the 1980s, before the sitcom made its cast famous?

Courteney Cox worked at the publisher for a short spell in the 1980s, when it was a small start-up begun on a kitchen table. She found fame as Monica Geller in Friends in the 1990s.

Bethesda took the studio behind which hit game to court in 2011 over a card game called Scrolls?

Minecraft maker Mojang was sued because Bethesda argued the name Scrolls sat too close to its Elder Scrolls trademark. The two sides settled in 2012: Mojang kept the name but agreed not to trademark it.

Which film star voiced James, the scientist father who vanishes at the start of Bethesda's Fallout 3?

Liam Neeson played the father whose unexplained disappearance sends the player out into the wasteland. Bethesda also hired Malcolm McDowell, as the scheming President Eden.

Which Star Trek actor voiced Emperor Uriel Septim VII, who dies early in The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion?

Patrick Stewart recorded the doomed emperor, who is on the run from assassins who have already murdered his three sons. His death in the opening minutes sets the whole story moving.

Bethesda Softworks is named after the town where it was founded in 1986, in which US state?

Maryland's Bethesda is where the founder set the company up at his kitchen table. It moved to nearby Rockville in 1990 but kept the old town's name.

Which cosmetic add-on for The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion drew complaints in 2006 as poor value for money?

Horse armor was the first paid download for Oblivion, released in April 2006. Players liked the idea of small add-ons but balked at paying for something so minor.

What everyday item do survivors use as money across the wasteland in Bethesda's Fallout games?

Bottle caps serve as the wasteland's everyday currency, though plenty of trade is still done by straight barter. Even the mobile spin-off Fallout Shelter pays its players in them.

On which fictional continent are Bethesda's Elder Scrolls games, from Arena to Skyrim, all set?

Tamriel is divided into nine provinces, each dominated by a different race, and sits on a planet called Nirn. Arena let players roam the whole continent, while later games zoom in on one region.

Which actor plays the mutated bounty hunter known as The Ghoul in Amazon's Fallout television series?

Walton Goggins plays the gunslinger, who was a Hollywood actor before the bombs fell and he mutated into a ghoul. The show tells an original story rather than adapting any one of the games.

Which game director at Bethesda Game Studios led development of Fallout 3, Skyrim and Fallout 4?

Todd Howard was recruited as a producer in 1994 and rose to become director and executive producer of the in-house studio. His first credits were on the company's 1990s movie tie-ins.

Which former technology forecaster at the ABC television network founded Bethesda Softworks in 1986?

Christopher Weaver started the firm as an experiment to see whether PC games could pay, funding it himself with roughly $100,000. He had no interest in football, the subject of its first release.

Which holding company was formed in 1999 as the parent of Bethesda Softworks?

ZeniMax Media was set up by Bethesda's founder and the lawyer Robert Altman. It later bought studios such as id Software and Arkane, whose games Bethesda publishes.

Bethesda sued which publisher in 1988, claiming Gridiron! features were reused in John Madden Football?

Electronic Arts had hired Bethesda to help finish the first Madden and held distribution rights to Gridiron!. The $7.3 million suit was resolved out of court.

Bethesda bought the Fallout rights from which struggling publisher, the franchise's original home in the 1990s?

Interplay was facing bankruptcy when it sold the series, having scrapped its own third instalment. Bethesda's in-house team built a new Fallout 3 from scratch.

Which studio, co-founded by veterans of Fallout's original publisher, developed Fallout: New Vegas for Bethesda?

Obsidian used the 2010 spin-off to build on ideas from Fallout 2, such as the New California Republic. Its Las Vegas setting was chosen because it evoked 1950s imagery.

Which Resident Evil creator founded Tango Gameworks, the Tokyo studio behind Bethesda's The Evil Within?

Shinji Mikami left Capcom and set the studio up in March 2010 with a team of twelve. It hit money trouble within months and was bought by Bethesda's parent that October.

Bethesda's parent bought Doom creator id Software in 2009; in which US state is that studio based?

Texas has been home to id Software since 1992, first in Mesquite and now in Richardson. The 2009 sale put Doom, Quake and Rage under the Bethesda label.

Which French city is home to Arkane Studios, the Bethesda team behind Dishonored and Deathloop?

Lyon is where Arkane was established in October 1999 by eleven founders. Its first release, Arx Fatalis, followed in 2002, a decade before Dishonored made its name.

MachineGames, the Bethesda studio behind Wolfenstein: The New Order, is based in which European country?

Sweden is home to MachineGames, founded in Uppsala in 2009 by seven former Starbreeze Studios developers. They went on to revive Wolfenstein for a new generation.

Bethesda's writers set Fallout 3 in the ruins of which American city, on the principle of writing what you know?

Washington was picked because the studio's offices sat only a short drive away. The ruined capital and the land around it are known in Fallout 3 as the Capital Wasteland.

Fallout 4's wasteland, known as the Commonwealth, covers the ruins of which American city and its surroundings?

Boston and the countryside around it form the map, a setting rumoured for some time before the first trailer confirmed it. Fallout 4 was also the first entry with a fully voiced player character.

Fallout 76, Bethesda's first online multiplayer Fallout, is set in the Appalachian hills of which US state?

West Virginia's real towns, such as Charleston and Morgantown, appear on the map, and local folklore supplies monsters like the Mothman. Players emerge 25 years after the bombs fell.

Which fictional corporation designed the underground shelters where Bethesda's Fallout heroes usually begin?

Vault-Tec pitched its bunkers as public shelters, each able to hold up to a thousand people. Its cheerful cartoon mascot still grins from posters and products all over the wasteland.

What is the name of the wrist-worn computer that Bethesda's Fallout players use to check maps, items and stats?

Pip-Boy stands for Personal Information Processor, and in Bethesda's Fallout games the gadget doubles as the menu screen. It has become one of the defining symbols of the franchise.

Which companion, inspired by a character in Mad Max 2, joins the player in several Fallout games?

Dogmeat first turns up as an optional companion in the original Fallout, and dogs of the same name return in Fallout 3 and Fallout 4. Bethesda modelled its Fallout 3 version on a Blue Heeler to match the film.

Which 2023 space role-playing game was Bethesda Game Studios's first new universe in more than 25 years?

Starfield casts the player as a space miner recruited by Constellation, a famed group of explorers chasing mysterious Artifacts. Its director summed up the pitch as Skyrim in space.

Bethesda's 2016 reboot of Doom opens in an energy-mining facility overrun by demons on which planet?

Mars is where the Union Aerospace Corporation runs a plant that taps energy seeping out of Hell. The player, an ancient warrior nicknamed the Doom Slayer, fights through it and into Hell itself.

In the alternate history of Bethesda's Fallout games, the US fought its devastating nuclear war against which country?

China and the United States destroyed each other after years of clashes over scarce energy. The games follow the descendants of the survivors, generations after the missiles flew.

Which militaristic order, devoted to collecting and preserving old technology, helps the hero in Bethesda's Fallout 3?

Brotherhood of Steel soldiers storm the Jefferson Memorial in the finale alongside Liberty Prime, a giant pre-war military robot. The order also gave its name to two earlier Fallout spin-offs.

In Bethesda's Elder Scrolls lore, the province of Skyrim is the homeland of which human race?

Nords see Skyrim as their homeland, though orcs and other peoples have settled there too. They also worship a ninth god that most of the continent leaves out of its pantheon of eight.

Which cat-like race in Bethesda's Elder Scrolls games comes from the province of Elsweyr?

Khajiit are among the ten races players can choose in Skyrim, where they sit beside lizard-like Argonians, orcs, and several kinds of human and elf.

Which dragon, prophesied to destroy the world, is the main antagonist of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim?

Alduin, called the World-Eater, was flung forward in time by three ancient warriors using an Elder Scroll. He reappears in the opening scene, just in time to interrupt the player's execution.

Which rebel army, named after its leader Ulfric, fights the Imperial Legion in Skyrim's civil war?

Stormcloaks follow Ulfric, the jarl of Windhelm, in a rebellion against Imperial rule that splits the province's holds. The player can join either side and fight the war to a finish.

Which composer wrote the music for Bethesda's Morrowind, Oblivion and Skyrim, including Skyrim's choral main theme?

Jeremy Soule recorded a 30-man choir three times over for Skyrim's theme, layering the takes so that it sounds like 90 voices.

The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind takes place on which island, with the volcanic Red Mountain at its centre?

Vvardenfell is only one part of the wider Morrowind province, home of the Dark Elves. The Bloodmoon expansion later added a second, smaller island called Solstheim.

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion is set in which province, the heartland of the Imperials?

Cyrodiil is menaced by a cult called the Mythic Dawn, which plans to open gates to a demonic realm. That realm, not the province, is the Oblivion of the title.

Which 2007 Oblivion expansion sends players to a realm of madness ruled by the Daedric prince Sheogorath?

Shivering Isles promised a land that changes with the player's life-or-death decisions. It was the second of two full expansions, following Knights of the Nine.

Bethesda's 1996 epic The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall boasted a world roughly the size of which real island?

Great Britain was the yardstick Bethesda gave for a map said to hold some 15,000 cities, towns, villages and dungeons.

In 2006 the ESRB re-rated The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, moving it out of Teen and into which category?

Mature 17+ was imposed after the board found gorier content than it had been shown, plus a hidden art file that a third-party tool could open. Bethesda complied but disputed the reasoning.

Bethesda's Fallout 3 lets players pause combat and target an enemy's individual body parts using which system?

V.A.T.S., as the mode is known, spends Action Points with every attack, so players must wait for them to refill before using it again. Fallout 3 was also the first main entry in full 3D.

Which country's classification board at first refused Bethesda's Fallout 3 over its depiction of drug use?

Australia passed the game only after Bethesda swapped every mention of morphine for a made-up drug and removed the injection animation.

Buyers of Fallout 76's priciest edition were promised a canvas duffel bag by Bethesda; what was it actually made of?

Nylon bags turned up instead, and the product description was only reworded after customers complained. Bethesda was criticised for not flagging the change beforehand.

In Fallout: New Vegas, the player character is shot in the head and left for dead while doing which job?

Courier is the job: the hero is ambushed by a casino owner named Benny while delivering a device called the Platinum Chip. Hunting him down drives the opening hours of the story.

In which plague-ridden fictional city, inspired by London and Edinburgh, is Bethesda's stealth game Dishonored set?

Dunwall was a late choice: early plans set the story in medieval Japan, then in seventeenth-century London. Players stalk it as Corvo Attano, a bodyguard framed for murdering his empress.

Prey, the 2017 Arkane shooter published by Bethesda, traps the player aboard which alien-infested space station?

Talos I is a research laboratory run by the TranStar Corporation to study the Typhon, a hostile alien force. The player, Morgan Yu, has to end the outbreak when the creatures escape.

Which voice actor plays the hero in Bethesda's Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, using Harrison Ford's likeness?

Troy Baker supplied both the voice and the motion capture for an original adventure set between Raiders of the Lost Ark and The Last Crusade.

Which American war veteran is the hero of Bethesda's Wolfenstein games, set in a world where the Nazis won?

William Blazkowicz, better known by the initials BJ, battles a victorious Nazi regime in an alternate 1960s Europe. The New Order was the first entry to give him real character development.

Before The Elder Scrolls made its name, Bethesda built several 1990s games around which film franchise?

The Terminator reached MS-DOS in July 1991, timed to the cinema release of the second film. Bethesda kept the licence going until 1996 with follow-ups such as the shooter Future Shock.

Which ice hockey legend lent his name and likeness to a 1988 Bethesda sports game and its two sequels?

Wayne Gretzky fronted the 1988 original, which Bethesda followed with sequels in 1990 and 1992. All three came out before the first Elder Scrolls adventure existed.

Redfall, the 2023 co-op shooter from Bethesda and Arkane, pits players against a legion of which monsters?

Vampires seized the isolated town after a scientific experiment failed, cutting it off from the outside world. Players choose one of four survivors, each with unique abilities, to fight back.