Bethesda’s statement

We’ve been grateful to our fans for the wonderful response to our recent launch of The Elder Scrolls Online for PC/Mac, but we know many of you are eagerly waiting to play the game on the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.

We continue to work on the console versions of ESO, and game development has been progressing steadily, but we are still working to solve a series of unique problems specific to those platforms. Integrating our systems with each console manufacturer’s networks — which are both different from the PC/Mac system as well as different from each other—has been a challenging process. It has become clear that our planned June release of the console versions isn’t going to be possible. Though we have made great progress, we have concluded that we’ll need about six months to ensure we deliver the experience our fans expect and deserve.

We know that the news of an ESO console delay is as disappointing to many of you as it is to us. We want to do what we can to make it up to our fans who want to start playing now, so we have worked out the following arrangement with Sony and Microsoft:

Via a special offer, anyone who purchases and plays the PC/Mac version of The Elder Scrolls Online by the end of June will have the opportunity to transfer their character(s) to either console version when they are released. The offer will allow you to begin playing immediately on the PC/Mac, and then add the PS4 or Xbox One version and transfer the character(s) you have created and developed. And, you don’t have to pay full price for the game twice. For $20, eligible PC and Mac players will have the option to add a full, digital version of ESO on either the PS4 or the Xbox One with your character transfer(s), and another 30 days of included game time.

Whether you decide to take advantage of this offer or not, we promise to do everything we can to get the game released on both consoles as quickly as we can. We will keep everyone updated with additional details regarding character transfers, specific offer dates, when you can expect console beta to start, and of course, when ESO on consoles will launch.

Thank you for your patience and loyal support.

Q&A:

I’ve just pre-ordered Wolfenstein, where’s my DOOM beta key?

An insert will be included inside your boxed copy of Wolfenstein: The New Order. This insert will include a key code along with code redemption instructions. Once the key code is redeemed, you’ll be registered to participate in the DOOM beta once it begins. Check back at wolfenstein.com/doom for updated information.

What is the release date of Wolfenstein: The New Order?

Wolfenstein: The New Order will be available on May 20, 2014 in North America and May 23, 2014 in Europe for PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360, Xbox One and PC.

How do I redeem my code?

Once you’ve received your boxed copy of Wolfenstein: The New Order, simply return to wolfenstein.com/doom and follow the code redemption instructions located on the enclosed DOOM beta insert. Once you enter your code you will be asked to provide a valid email address. We’ll contact you at a later date through the email address provided with further instructions on the DOOM beta

Do I need to specify what platform I want to play the DOOM beta?

Prior to the start of the DOOM beta, you will be contacted at the email address provided during the code redemption process. At that time, we will provide additional information on timing, available options, and other important news and information. Beta timing and platform options are subject to Bethesda Softworks’ discretion.

What is the DOOM beta? How long will it last?

We will be providing more information on the specific content and duration of the beta test at a later time.

When does the DOOM beta start?

Although you’ll receive the DOOM beta key code with your copy of Wolfenstein: The New Order, the DOOM beta won’t begin until a later, yet-to-be announced date. We will contact you with news and updates surrounding the start of the DOOM beta via the email address provided during the key code redemption process.

Will there be an Open Beta for DOOM?

Timing and availability of future beta programs for DOOM is to be determined. The only current way to ensure access is through pre-ordering Wolfenstein: The New Order. We will be providing more information on additional beta tests, if any, at a later time.

Official Box Art:

It was swiftly taken offline as you’d imagine, but GameTrailers managed to get a screengrab, which you can see here.

The Imperial Edition includes a 12-inch statue of the Daedric Prince Molag Bal, a map of Tamriel, and a huge 224-page illustrated book. Additionally, Imperial Edition players will have the ability to play as an Imperial regardless of alliance. And just to sweeten the deal, you’ll get a white Imperial horse, a Mudcrab pet, and a pair of Rings of Mara. The whole set is bound in Steelbook packaging.

Notably, only the PS4 logo is emblazoned on the Imperial Edition box art. The game comes out for MAC and PC on April 4th, and in June for PS4 and Xbox One.

Through the US PS Blog, Bethesda made known that its upcoming MMO, The Elder Scrolls Online, which requires a monthly fee of  $14.99/£8.99 to play, won’t require gamers to have PS Plus, unlike Microsoft’s Xbox One which requires Xbox Live Gold.

“A PlayStation Plus membership is not required to play The Elder Scrolls Online,” the publisher confirmed on the PlayStation Blog. “PS4 players will only be required to pay the same monthly subscription associated with The Elder Scrolls Online that PC and Mac users will pay – nothing more.”

Bethesda also answered other questions pertaining to the game on the blog. You can sign up for its beta here.

The game will be released on PC and MAC on April 4th, and in June for PS4 and Xbox One.

Video Thirst

Press Release:

Bethesda Softworks Announces Star-Studded Voice Over Cast for The Elder Scrolls Online

Bethesda Softworks, a ZeniMax Media company, today announced the members of the renowned cast lending their voices to The Elder Scrolls Online, the highly-anticipated game arriving April 4, 2014 on PC and Mac and June 2014 for the PlayStation 4 system and Xbox One. The Elder Scrolls Online ensemble includes Academy Award nominee John Cleese (“A Fish Called Wanda,” “Monty Python and the Holy Grail”), Golden Globe winner Bill Nighy (“Pirates of the Caribbean”), Kate Beckinsale (“The Aviator,” “Pearl Harbor”), Alfred Molina (“Spider-Man 2″) and Golden Globe nominees Michael Gambon (“Harry Potter”), and Malcolm McDowell (“A Clockwork Orange”). In addition, Lynda Carter (“Wonder Woman”) returns to the Elder Scrolls series to reprise her role from The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.

The Elder Scrolls Online is the latest chapter of the award-winning franchise and will bring the legendary experience online for the first time. Players can choose their own style of play as they embark upon an epic adventure across all of Tamriel, playing alone on heroic quests as in previous Elder Scrolls games, exploring the huge, rich world with a few friends, or joining with hundreds of others in massive PvP battles to save the Empire.

“This extraordinary group of actors helps bring the distinctive characters in The Elder Scrolls Online to life,” said Matt Firor, game director of The Elder Scrolls Online. “In The Elder Scrolls tradition, we sought world class talent to add a deep and enriching component to the immersive world the series offers players.”

John Cleese plays Cadwell, the cheerful and endearingly mad lost soul who is not afraid of anyone, even a Daedric Prince. Joining the cast as High King Emeric, Bill Nighy portrays a merchant prince whose luck and determination won him the throne. Kate Beckinsale takes on the role of Queen Ayrenn, the leader of the Aldmeri Dominion and Queen of the High Elves who is far more comfortable with a blade than her crown.

In addition, Alfred Molina takes on the role of Abnur Tharn, a wily old wizard and politician who is the head of the Empire’s Elder Council, and the de facto power behind the Ruby Throne. Lynda Carter plays Azura, the Daedric Princess of Dusk and Dawn from Skyrim who is a popular part of Elder Scrolls lore. Michael Gambon voices The Prophet, a mysterious blind man who guides the player through their journey to retrieve their soul; and Malcolm McDowell plays the key figure Molag Bal, an evil Daedric god from another plane who schemes to enslave the mortal souls of Tamriel.

The Elder Scrolls Online cast also includes:
·
• Peter Stormare (“Fargo”) plays Jorunn the Skald King, an unexpected monarch who led his people into an unlikely alliance.

• Jim Ward (“WALL·E,” “Despicable Me 2″) voices Mannimarco, a renegade High Elf wizard exiled from the realm for raising the dead and the world’s most powerful necromancer.

• Jennifer Hale appears in the role of Lyris Titanborn, a Nord half-giant, who, along with the Prophet, aids the player on their journey..

• Kevin Michael Richardson rounds out the cast as Sai Sahan a noble martial artist and master swordsman.

The Elder Scrolls Online has been named one of the industry’s most anticipated titles for 2014 and marks a historic point for the franchise with its multiplayer online play after nearly 20 years of developing these best-selling, award-winning fantasy role-playing games for single player only. The previous chapter in this franchise was The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim® which was released in November 2011 and enjoyed worldwide critical and commercial success. As the sequel to the 2002 Role-Playing Game of the Year, The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, and the 2006 Game of the Year, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, Skyrim earned hundreds of ‘Game of the Year’ awards and sold over 20 million copies.

The Elder Scrolls Online is being developed for the PlayStation4 system, Xbox One, PC, and Mac by ZeniMax Online Studios. The studio is headed by industry veteran Matt Firor who has more than 20 years of online game development experience. Working with Matt is a team of highly regarded professionals who have created some of the best known online games ever released.

Earlier today on Skyrim’s official website, the game was listed as coming to PS4 and Xbox One, see screengrab below.

Well according to Bethesda, it was a bug that caused PS4 and Xbox One to be listed as platforms the 2011 game is coming to.

“We have been working on the CMS that runs our sites,” Bethesda marketing exec Pete Hines said. “A bug caused platforms that don’t exist to show up for some games. Sorry for confusion.”

Still, that doesn’t mean that the game isn’t being remastered for a next-gen release. It simply means Bethesda screwed up and had to come up with an excuse. Said excuse being it was a glitch that caused it to show up so early —

I know, I know. I’m talking nonsense, but we shall see.

Kotaku got hold of the leaked voice acting and casting call documents of Fallout 4, and although said documents never include the word “Fallout”, the contents therein leaves no room for guessing what said project is.

The project is code-name “The Institute”, and the first line of one of its pages starts with “War. War never changes”, perhaps the single most recognized line in any Fallout game.

It discusses the main character’s great great-grandfather, who served in the army in 1945. Expecting that the bombs that ended World War II would be a harbinger of absolute atomic warfare, the narrator expresses surprise that it took until the 21st century for the world to end in nuclear fire.

Another document makes reference to the Commonwealth Minutemen. In Fallout lore, the Commonwealth is the post-apocalyptic name of Massachusetts. Kotaku has all the details.

Hopefully details will be unleashed soon by publisher Bethesda about platforms and who’s actually developing the title.

The last Fallout game was New Vegas, released on October 19th, 2013, and developed by Obsidian Entertainment.

Are you excited? Let me know in the comments!

According to the filing, Bethesda Softworks registered a trademark for ‘Fallout 4′ last Thursday, around the same time thesurvivor2299.com surfaced online.

The website includes a countdown clock that ends of Wednesday December 11th, and a message in Morse Code.

Bethesda hasn’t acknowledged the website or even the trademark, but some digging reveals that the trademark belongs to Bethesda’s parent company, ZeniMax Media.

The last Fallout game, Fallout: New Vegas, was released in October, 2010.

Bethesda’s Pete Hines says it’s too late to convince Bethesda, or anyone in general, to support the Wii U from this point on. On the latest episode of Gametrailers’ Bonus Round, Bethesda marketing chief Pete Hines said Nintendo only has itself to look at if it wants to see the reason why the console has little third-party support.

“The time for convincing publishers and developers to support Wii U has long past.

The box is out. You have to do what Sony and Microsoft have been doing with us for a long time. It’s not that every time we met with them we got all the answers that we wanted, but they involved us very early on, talking to folks like Bethesda and Gearbox, saying, ‘Here’s what we’re doing, here’s what we’re planning, here’s how we think it’s going to work,’ to hear what we thought, from our tech guys, and from an experience standpoint.

You have to spend an unbelievable amount of time upfront doing that. If you’re going to sort of decide ‘Well, we’re going to make a box and this is how it’s going to work, and you should make games for it,’ – well, no! No is my answer!

I’m going to focus on other ones that better support what it is we’re trying to do. You’ve got to spend more time trying to reach out to those folks before you even make the box when you’re still designing it and thinking about how it’s going to work.”

While Sony and Microsoft consulted the game industry’s titans when they started working on their next-gen consoles, Nintendo just launched the console anyway in 2012.

Hines, however, is not changing his mind any time soon.

“Honestly, it’s not something I spend a lot of time thinking about. Pick the consoles that have the games you want to play. You shouldn’t have ever bought a Wii U expecting to play great Bethesda games on there because that’s not something we’d ever supported in the past. We’ll see how that changes down the road – if it does.

It’s more about the hardware and the audience and supporting yet another platform, and does it do everything the way the others do? If not then usually it just doesn’t make a lot of sense to spend that much time and attention on something that doesn’t fit what you’re doing.”

Our take: While Nintendo could use some third party support, it’s not the next Call of Duty or Battlefield that will sell the console, but the next Zelda and Mario. As long as third-party support means exclusives like The Wonderful 101, Nintendo is on a good path.

Gematsu listed all 21 publishers that signed a deal with Sony regarding exclusive content for Playstation 3, Playstation 4, Playstation Vita and Playstation Mobile. Some if it, we know, some, not. Quench the list:

• Activision Blizzard – Diablo III content
• Atlus
• Bethesda Games – The Elder Scrolls Online gets Playstation 4-exclusive beta
• Bluepoint Games – “Sony classic to modern systems”
• Bungie – Destiny
• Capcom – Deep Down
• Disney Interactive
• EA
• Insomniac Games
• Konami
• Level-5
• Nordic Games
• Rockstar Games
• Sanzaru Games
• Sega
• Square Enix
• Sumo Digital
• Take-Two
• Ubisoft – Watch_Dogs, Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag (Aveline content)
• Warner Bros. – Batman: Arkham Origins content
• Zindagi Games

The Oculus Rift team will greet Carmack at its new Dallas offices. A spokesperson for Bethesda has told Gamasutra:

“John has long been interested in the work at Oculus VR and wishes to spend time on that project. The technical leadership he provides for games in development at id Software is unaffected.”

Meanwhile, an Oculus spokesperson has told Gamasutra, “He’s full time at Oculus VR.”

Carmack then posted on his Twitter account:

My time division is now Oculus over Id over Armadillo. Busy busy busy!

— John Carmack (@ID_AA_Carmack) August 7, 2013

It is a big change of pace to go from working on carefully engineered code for the long haul to PANICKY STARTUP CODING FOR THE NEXT DEMO.

— John Carmack (@ID_AA_Carmack) August 7, 2013

“It’s largely a hardware thing. We make the games that we want to make, on whatever platforms will support them as developed.

None of the games we’ve announced are being developed for the Wii U, so it’s guaranteed that none of those games are coming to Wii U.”

Bethesda is publishing Wolfenstein: The New Order, Shinji Mikami’s new survival horror The Evil Within and PC/next-gen role-playing MMOThe Elder Scrolls Online.

Taking The Elder Scrolls as an example, Hines said it “likely would have” been launched on current-gen platforms, but “it just wasn’t possible” due to the game’s size and scope.

“Will any future ones come out? I can’t say for sure. In our near-term focus it’s not on our radar.”