Bethesda is closing its PC game launcher and moving to Steam

videogameschronicle.com:

Bethesda has announced plans to close its PC games launcher and move its titles to Steam.

Starting in early April, players will be able to migrate their games and wallet to a Steam account, with instructions on how to do so set to be published at that time.

In an FAQ, Bethesda said purchases will carry over to a Steam account and many game saves will also transfer, but some may require manual copying.

“At this time, we expect almost all save progress to be transferable automatically or manually with the exception of Wolfenstein: Youngblood, which currently is unable to transfer,” it said.

Starting in May, it will no longer be possible to access and play games within the Bethesda launcher, so the migration process will need to be completed before then.

Many of the publisher’s games and services will still require players to have a Bethesda.net account in order to retain access to things such as game mods and in-game items like skins.

Games that have the Bethesda.net Friends List will be merged after migration.

The move to Steam follows Microsoft’s $7.5 billion acquisition of Bethesda’s parent company ZeniMax Media last year.

And it comes ahead of the release of Starfield, which is Bethesda Game Studios’ first new universe in 25 years. The sci-fi RPG will be released for Xbox Series X/S, PC and Xbox Game Pass on November 11, 2022.