Bad news for any big Bethesda fans who don’t already own an Xbox or PC - it sounds like plenty more titles are going to become Microsoft exclusives soon.
According to The Verge’s Tom Warren, in its response to the Federal Trade Commission (defending its planned acquisition of Activision), Microsoft revealed that “three future” Bethesda titles are expected to be PC and Xbox exclusives. But what games are they referring to? Their names seem to be censored in the document, but we probably already have some idea what they are.
Take a look at some gameplay footage from Bethesda’s upcoming RPG Starfield below.
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The response hints that these three future games are all “designed to be played primarily alone or in small groups”, which definitely helps narrow it down. What’s not clear is what exactly is meant by “future” titles - we already know that Starfield and Redfall are going to be Xbox and PC exclusives, so although they fit the bill, it seems odd that the company would censor their names.
Microsoft has filed a response to the FTC’s lawsuit challenging the Activision acquisition. In the response, Microsoft admits that “Xbox anticipates that three future [Bethesda] titles…will be exclusive to Xbox and PCs” 👀 these will be primarily single player games pic.twitter.com/HWzLBbtdfT
— Tom Warren (@tomwarren) December 23, 2022
That then leaves us with The Elder Scrolls 6 and Fallout 5 to consider. Although we know very little about either of these games, chances are that they’re almost certainly going to fit into the “designed to be played primarily alone” category, as past games in their respective series did too (with exceptions such as Fallout 76 and The Elder Scrolls Online). Some have also speculated that Bethesda’s upcoming Indiana Jones game could also be one of the three future exclusives.
Understandably, not everyone is happy about the idea of such highly anticipated titles not being available on all platforms: “Microsoft[,] your purchase of Activision will not hurt me, but your purchase of Bethesda did. I play Elder Scrolls, which until last year was multi-platform. The next Elder Scrolls is rumoured to be Xbox and PC exclusive. That hurts me, a PS owner. Make everything multi-platform,” Twitter user @SlimThomas wrote. “Please don't let Indiana Jones be exclusive,” @phantamakes tweeted.
At the time of writing, these three potentially exclusive titles haven’t been officially confirmed, so this is all speculation. We’ll just have to wait and see what happens.
