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Escalation Studios is no more, with the team acquired by Zenimax Media in 2016 completing its metamorphosis into Bethesda Game Studios Dallas – now a fully-owned and named subsidiary.
While the PR sent out by Bethesda might colour things differently, Escalation wasn’t a brand new purchase – while the studio was founded in 2007 and operated independently for the majority of its decade pre-Zenimax purchase, it had indeed come under the publisher’s wing in February of last year.
Semantics of press releases aside, this does act as a show of confidence in the newly crowned Bethesda Dallas. The team previously worked on Skyrim and Fallout’s VR versions, as well as on Fallout Shelter for Nintendo Switch, and 2016’s Doom.
The announcement of the name change included a mention of Bethesda Dallas’s current work: contributing to ‘key parts’ of both 2018’s MMO spin-off Fallout 76, and upcoming sci-fi RPG Starfield.
“We’ve been working with Tom [Mustaine, co-founder], Marc [Tardif, co-founder], and the team at Escalation for a long time,” Todd Howard, executive producer at Bethesda Game Studios said, “They’ve already delivered amazing games with us, and we knew we could do even bigger things together.”
“We were honored to join the ZeniMax family in 2016 and the team is humbled to now join Bethesda Game Studios,” said Tardif, “We’re thrilled to share in the studio’s passion and commitment to bringing new and ambitious experiences to some of the industry’s most iconic franchises.”
“This is an exciting time for everyone at the studio,” added Mustaine. “We feel a profound sense of pride and excitement to work on the most anticipated games in the industry, and we can’t wait for fans to see what we’ve been working on.”
