It’s not all desolate wastelands and dragon-destroyed towns out there. Microsoft is reportedly laying the groundwork for a Bethesda presentation following its $7.5 billion acquisition of ZeniMax Media, according to Jeffrey Grubb, a reporter for Games Beat.
This information came from Grubb during the GB Decides podcast over the weekend. Grubb said he wasn’t sure if it’d be a “full [Nintendo] Direct-style event,” but that Microsoft will talk “extensively” about the “immediate future for both companies becoming one.”
“This is one of the milestones for Microsoft before E3,” Grubb said. “Once the [ZeniMax] deal closes, they will talk about it in a big way.”
Related: E3 reportedly planning an online-only event in 2021
Microsoft’s acquisition of ZeniMax is still pending approval from the European Commission. The Commission had found the deal to be within regulations based upon “preliminary examination” in January and also invited “interested third parties to submit… observations” of the deal.
The Commission will make a final decision by March 5, according to a report from Reuters. If the Commission has any reservations, a “full-scale investigation” can be triggered—though that looks unlikely at this point.
There’s yet to be a confirmation on whether ZeniMax’s franchises—which include Bethesda’s The Elder Scrolls and Fallout series, id Software’s Doom and Quake, and Arkane Studios’ Dishonored—will be exclusive to the Xbox platform. More information could be forthcoming once everything has joined the Microsoft fold, possibly in mid-March or later.
