Bethesda mentions WOW-like MMO

By Robert Purchese Published 20 January, 2010

Elder hell do we know what it is?

Bethesda is working on a "World of Warcraft type MMO", according to legal papers submitted in a court case between the company and Interplay.

Apparently development on the MMO has been ongoing since 2006 and involves "close to a hundred people" and a budget of "tens of millions of dollars".

The game's identity is unknown, but strongly rumoured to be an Elder Scrolls MMO. VG247 has been "reliably" informed of this, apparently, and been told the reveal was supposed to happen last year.

From Bethesda's portfolio, there are two obvious candidates for MMO treatment: Fallout and Elder Scrolls. Bethesda cannot, for the moment, legally produce a Fallout MMO, as Interplay owns those rights.

Bethesda seeks to end that in the current court case, and terminate Interplay's Fallout IP licensing deal that was signed in 2004. It's been an ongoing spat.

That leaves Elder Scrolls. Supporting that assumption are comments made by Bethesda that the Elder Scrolls series will continue as well as Bethesda registering the elderscrollsonline.com domain.

In 2007, Bethesda's parent company ZeniMax hired Mythic Entertainment co-founder Matt Firor to lead development of an MMO. His experience on Dark Ages of Camelot, a traditional fantasy game, closely fits the Elder Scrolls bill.

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

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Comments (36) Latest comment 2 years ago

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  • Byzanite #1 2 years ago

    oo blank article. Am i too early? :p

  • tossetaz #2 2 years ago

    everything we need to know is in the headline!

  • lordofthedunce #3 2 years ago

    [ends]

  • HMAN #4 2 years ago

    21st Century journalism, you write it yourself

  • sneetch #5 2 years ago

    Rob's finest work to date. :p

  • Bertie Verified Senior Staff Writer, Eurogamer.net #6 2 years ago

    Rob's finest work to date. :p

    Oi! :)

  • Lionheart #7 2 years ago

    Rob you are a man of few words.

  • Benno #8 2 years ago

    awww it will be first person though i bet :(
    that means you cant see your epics

  • jellyhead #9 2 years ago

    I'm surprised an how uninterested i am in an Elder Scrolls MMO. I loved Morrowind but i'm finding it difficult to give a damn about fantasy stuff at the moment. Good luck to them though, releasing an MMO is not an easy task!

  • ZuluHero #10 2 years ago

    I'd have loved Oblivion as an MMO so this is good news for me. I'd love FO3 as an MMO too - probably more than an Elder Scrolls game. But either suits me! :p

  • NewbieZilla #11 2 years ago

    Bethesda did great work on The Elder Scrolls and Fallout 3. Aside from the fact I'm not into MMOs, it should be noted that as well as being capable of making fun, time consuming RPGs, they are also known for buggy messes. To MMO fans, I'm sure a degree of caution would be wise.

  • Crea #12 2 years ago

    Not too happy at the prospect of this replacing the development of future single-player Elder Scrolls games.

  • hiddenranbir #13 2 years ago

    Wait, did they actually say WOW-style MMO and not just a MMO?

  • Bravestinsane #14 2 years ago

    Really hope is a Fallout one and they sort out the license.

    Theres enough fantasy mmos with magic and all that crap out there, would be nice to have a big budget shooter mmo like fallout,

  • Eraysor #15 2 years ago

    Ohnoes. I'd much rather just have Elder Scrolls V, thanks.

  • Murton #16 2 years ago

    I'm surprised by how much I'm not bothered by this, as much as I loved the Elder Scrolls series Oblivion lacked something and Failout was just too badly slapped together and shoved out the door to inspire much confidence in them as a developer.

    I also don't think we need another WoW clone out there, there are already enough fantasy setting MMORPGs out there using a modified Everquest interface and setup and even if people did want another one, Elder Scrolls isn't the one to deliver, that should remain a single player affair.

  • UKwoods #17 2 years ago

    This is great, as long as they don't forget to make it great for solo players too. Morrowind and Oblivion are my all time no.1 games, so I would hate for them to screw it up trying to dethrone WOW.

  • Koozer #18 2 years ago

    WoW-like? No. Oh no, no no. I loathe and despise the standard model everything including WoW conforms to: kill a badger, collect some spleens, level up, get a spell, repeat. I loved the character progression in Morrowind and Oblivion with skills levelling up independently as you used them. If they're going with a fallout 3-esque system I will be the opposite of happy.

  • makeamazing #19 2 years ago

    The MMO market is just becoming so ... well boring and too many games. I'm not sure there are enough customers to go around all of these new MMOs.

  • Tio #20 2 years ago

    I agree with Murton, as a former MMO maniac , WoW has made me so sterile that I am never interested in other MMO's anymore , lets face it it has no chance. There will be lots of promising Ideas and this one "really will survive" but it will be the same as all the other let downs , that I got excited about over the last few years...Conan...Warhammer...Lord of the Rings ...ect ect. (lotr is at least playable to be fair).

  • otto #21 2 years ago

    Love the investigative journalism Bertie! ;D

  • BabyJesus #22 2 years ago

    Beths own studio leads (Todd,Emil etc) aren't working on a mmo but zenimax online their sister company are.

    Beth publically clarified this last year, the only releation is parent company and it would be published by beth.(Wet brink etc)

  • Toothball #23 2 years ago

    Another fantasy themed MMO? Is this really what the world needs?

  • sesskie #24 2 years ago

    YEs, this is what we needed, another multi-million investment MMO with a subscription based model that will stand a snowballs chance in hell of turning a profit.

    Even if it is Elder scrolls, I wouldnt bite, the combat in that game was terrible. Now, a Fallout MMO... keep talkin', I'm interested.

  • curtlikesmeat #25 2 years ago

    Morrowind was fantastic, Oblivion was alright but very bland - would definitely be up for an MMO if done right (although they'd obviously have to resize the world as the whole game area in Oblivion is about the size of the Barrens in WoW).

  • Mr.DNA #26 2 years ago

    In many ways, Oblivion was one step forward and two steps backwards after the sublime Morrowind. However, if this is true and Bethesda are indeed working full-tilt on an Elder Scrolls MMO, and have been since 2006, then, for me at least, it's absolutely dreadful news. There are nowhere near enough full-on Western-style single player RPGs for me to get my teeth into as it is, and if Bethesda haven't even started work on The Elder Scrolls V then that's simply one less huge RPG for me to look forward to, in a climate that is already seeing a real dearth of full-on Western-style single player RPGs. MMOs have never enticed me due to the fact that I don't know anybody who would want to play them with me, with all of my friends being the sort of casual gamers who play FIFA, GTA and Modern Warfare and very little else.

    Or, perhaps, Bethesda will go down the BioWare route and attempt to make an MMO that people playing on their own can enjoy. Although whether BioWare actually manage to pull that off in a satisfactory manner remains to be seen.

    @BabyJesus: Really wish I'd read your post before going off on one. That's cheered me up no end.
    Edited by 1 at 20/01/10 @ 20:03

  • UKwoods #27 2 years ago

    Elder scrolls 5 is like the holy Grail to me. I still play Oblivion, and I could easily waste another 100 hours on Morrowind. Please let it be single player :(

  • r4z0rbl4d3 #28 2 years ago

    To me: Fallout > Elder Scrolls

    I loved Oblivion, but as someone mentioned, we don't need more fantasy-MMO's! Fallout has more going for it.

  • trooperdx3117 #29 2 years ago

    I was kind of hoping when I saw Bethesda in the title I hoped it meant another Elder scrolls title would be announced then I was dissapointed to read the rest and saw that it was just an announcement of a sure to be dissapointing WOW clone.

  • Koborover #30 2 years ago

    If players want to play a WOW-like game, they'll play WOW.

  • AphoticCosmos #31 2 years ago

    Please don't be WoW-style. Please be good :(

    Oh well, probably going to wind up as a sucker to TOR anyway, so what the hell.

  • hiruu #32 2 years ago

    stupid...why not make killer single player RPGs...with tons of DLC in the stream.

  • Zomeguy #33 2 years ago

    I would like to experience the same feelings I had when I first played Ultima VI, Ultima Underworld, Eye of the Beholder, Lands of Lore...
    Please?

  • actionfitz #34 2 years ago

    maybe they could work in a 3rd person mode. for the epeen brigade :)

  • geeza2020 #35 2 years ago

    Come on Bethesda, stop messing around with this MMO rubbish (lets face it nobody is ever going to beat WoW) and get on with the next Elder Scrolls game!! I've nearly finished everything in Fallout 3 now, and i dont want to have to wait another three years to play you're next single player rpg because you're making this crap!

  • davisorle #36 2 years ago

    Think the timeframe of 2006 is about right when they started talking about an Elder Scrolls MMO. Whatever that is I just hope its great. Im not expecting FFOnline to be somethign that will keep me interested and im just tired of WoW. Bethesa has some skills in RPGs so I hope they are putting them to good use.