Rock, Paper, Shotgun

One of the stories to emerge from Quakecon was that Zenimax have got their corporate cheque-book out again. Following Id into Bethesda’s masters maw is Arkane Studios, who you’ll know from Arx Fatalis, Dark Messiah of Might And Magic and doing work alongside 2K Marin on Bioshock 2. To state the obvious – with Id, Bethesda and publishing Splash Damage’s Brink, this helps cement Zenimax as a major power in that PC-centric PC/Console developed game area. By which I mean, traditional PC games which are now developed for both (and so provoke comment thread – aha! – Rage for merely existing). The press release follows and if you want to try and work out what Arkane are actually up to, our interview with Raphael Colantonio and Harvey Smith is where they lay out their current thinking best. Though I would say that.
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id’s Todd Hollenshead has told Eurogamer that they will no longer be licensing out their tech, starting with id Tech 5, for third-party developers. Unless their game is published by Bethesda. While it’s perhaps not unusual for a publisher to hold onto their own tech, it seems a long way from id’s past to keep their new middleware to themselves. The company has a rich history of not only licensing out their engines, but then releasing them as free software after a few years. However, this change comes after the company was bought by ZeniMax, owners of Bethesda, in 2009.

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Here’s what Bethesda say: “RAGE will be published by Bethesda Softworks, (a) ZeniMax subsidiary. As a result, Electronic Arts Inc will not be involved in the sales and marketing of RAGE. The ongoing development of RAGE is unaffected by this development.” Thoughts on this below.
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More rumour-mumblings from within the home of Bethesda, ZeniMax Media, regarding a forthcoming MMO.

CVG reports (good luck Firefox users!) that ZeniMax Online have licensed Simutronics‘ MMO HeroEngine (the same one BioWare have picked up for their forthcoming super-secret (ohmygodit’ssoobviouslystarwars) MMO).

This is being linked to the story from earlier this month regarding Bethesda’s registering of the domain, elderscrollsonline.com, and thus speculation that an Elder Scrolls MMO is on its way.

However, it might not be that simple. In this month’s PC Gamer (print version), The Spy reports that there’s speculation it could be an attempt at preparing for the Fallout MMO rights landing in their laps. In a peculiar deal, Interplay only has a loose grip on the option to make an online version of the Fallout universe, and if investors aren’t convinced they can do it, the rights will leap over to Bethesda. Is Bethesda preparing a net for the post-apocalyptic world?

Which would you rather see? An Oblivion-style MMO, or have their attentions turned to bringing the Fallout universe online?