ZeniMax Media and its subsidiaries, like Bethesda, have officially been acquired by Microsoft for $7.5 billion. And as the merger between the two companies becomes finalized, ZeniMax’s board of directors has been dissolved.
This information was revealed by Bethesda’s senior vice president of global marketing and communications Pete Hines in an email exchange with GameSpot, where he confirmed the board was no more.
Hines was one of the biggest voices in talking up ZeniMax’s board and its reach within multiple sectors of major media. The board included executives and big names like former MLB star Cal Ripken Jr. and producer Jerry Bruckheimer. Specifically, the Bethesda executive noted that Bruckheimer and others on the board advised against several proposals to create movies based on the Fallout and Elder Scrolls franchises up until recently when Amazon and Bethesda agreed to make a Fallout series.
This is only one aspect of the merger portion of Microsoft’s acquisition, though. The company already clarified that outside of current contractual obligations with PlayStation for titles like Deathloop, future Bethesda titles will likely only appear on Xbox-supported platforms. Head of Xbox Phil Spencer noted that future Bethesda titles will “ship on platforms where Game Pass exists” during a roundtable discussion about the ZeniMax acquisition, which means that PC, Xbox, and mobile devices are all a given.
Microsoft already added 20 new Bethesda titles to the Game Pass lineup earlier this month. More are set to come in the future once the merger is completed and ZeniMax’s assets are fully pulled into the Xbox Game Studios fold.
