Bethesda is sunsetting its launcher, will migrate to Steam instead

Gaming giant Bethesda is saying goodbye to its launcher and hello to Steam since it will migrate to the gaming platform and shut down its own launcher starting in early April, the company announced today.

Those who have games on the Bethesda launcher don’t need to worry, though. PC games purchased through the Bethesda launcher will be transferred to Steam, although some games will require a manual transfer of the save files to keep the progress gamers have earned in their games.

In early April, those with a Bethesda account who purchased games through the launcher will be able to start the migration process and will be able to follow detailed instructions given by Bethesda on how to do so. Many games won’t require a manual save transfer, but some will.

The Bethesda launcher will still be available to players until May. After that, players will need to migrate to Steam, which requires some action on the player’s part. The company will update players as April draws closer to give instructions on how to migrate accounts.

In the FAQ section of its announcement post, the company addressed the save file migration from Bethesda to Steam and explained that all save files should be able to transfer either automatically or manually. But those who play Wolfenstein: Youngblood are out of luck since that game is the only exception and is not able to transfer a save. The company also created a FAQ specific to Fallout 76.

The response to the news has been generally good on social media. Those who don’t like to have a bunch of launchers for their games are glad that Bethesda is migrating to Steam. Others didn’t know that a Bethesda launcher even existed since most of the games released by Bethesda are also available on Steam.

There are many questions from folks on social media, and as April draws closer, more details will be revealed for how players can migrate their games from the Bethesda launcher to Steam.