Bethesda’s jump to the Xbox Game Pass adds 12 classics: Oblivion, more [Updated]

The marriage between Microsoft and Bethesda moved forward on Thursday with a round table between the top players from both teams, and included an unsurprising announcement: starting tomorrow, March 12, a treasure of Bethesda games will come into service paid Xbox Game Pass.

Although the official announcement mentions a complete list of 20 games published by Bethesda on the Game Pass, Bethesda already had a few games in operation before today’s video was shown. The “new” content for paying subscribers includes 12 games in total:

The rest is visible in the list at the beginning of the article and the icons indicate whether a game is available on Windows 10 and / or streaming from xCloud. The list does not contain some important things that were previously published on Xbox consoles, including Fallout 3, The Evil Within 2, the 2016 Doom restart, and the original Fury 2011. It also doesn’t expand xCloud’s access to existing Game Pass games that previously didn’t work in the cloud – and so far, it doesn’t bring PC classics out of the Xbox ecosystem to the Game Pass family, not even to its Windows 10 tier. Still, watching the list go back to the first Xbox Elder Scrolls games is a treat for anyone hungry to explore the glory days of the series (despite the horse armor) before we hear about the previously announced Elder Scrolls VI.

For now, the list does not include current PlayStation console exclusives Deathloop and Ghostwire Tokyo, both scheduled to launch for Sony consoles at the end of the year. Microsoft and Bethesda have not yet indicated whether or when these games can reach Xbox consoles or Xbox Game Pass. Still, Microsoft had already promised that all of its original software will arrive day and day on the Game Pass for paying subscribers, and the next Bethesda games will now go directly to that plan.

Prior to the broadcast discussion, co-hosted by Xbox boss Phil Spencer, Bethesda game director Todd Howard, and Bethesda VP Pete Hines, the combined companies were careful to alert fans that it was not necessarily a ” news “- at least, in terms of announcing new games. Still, during today’s meeting, we received some pieces of information. First, the first announcements of new content from the combined companies will arrive “by the end of this summer”.

And, second, the games in the previous Bethesda catalog are being worked on by the Xbox “FPS Boost” team. The first game on today’s list to receive this treatment on the X / S Series consoles, as officially confirmed during the roundtable, is The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, but we don’t know when that game will receive its patch or when “other games” will receive similar treatment. The FPS Boost program for X / S Series consoles so far is in dire need of content, with only five games supported to date. (Fallout 4 had already been suggested as part of this program, so we have a hunch that it is part of the next patch recipient list.)

Update, 15:15 EST: After reviewing the quote from the presentation, a statement from Xbox boss Phil Spencer stood out, which I am collecting for your reading:

Obviously, I can’t sit here and say that all Bethesda games are exclusive [to Xbox platforms], because we know that this is not true. There are contractual obligations that we will fulfill, as we always do in each of these instances. We have games that exist on other platforms and we will support those games on the platforms they are on. There are communities of players. We love these communities and will continue to invest in them. And even in the future, there may be things that have contractual or legacy things on different platforms that we are going to do. But. If you are an Xbox customer, what I want you to know is how to deliver amazing and exclusive games for you, which come on platforms where the Game Pass exists. And that is our goal – that is why we are doing this. This is the root of the partnership that we are building. The creative capacity that we will be able to bring to the market for our Xbox customers will be the best it has ever been for Xbox after we are finished here.

In other words: if you expected unannounced Bethesda games to start simultaneously or with a timed delay on Sony or Nintendo consoles, you would have to cross your fingers for these systems to add support for Xbox Game Pass. Spencer’s choice of words on this point is very clever, in subtly nudging fans to request greater multiplatform support for this subscription service. Otherwise, future Bethesda games will sound as if they are fully enclosed in the Xbox family of devices and services.