The company behind Skyrim, Fallout, and the upcoming Starfield is getting rid of its launcher as early as this summer. First and foremost, the company assures players that any games or wallet funds in the launcher are safe and can be transferred to Steam. Bethesda has plans to migrate all of its games to Steam. This is a big win for Valve’s massive gaming platform on PC. Fans who play Bethesda’s games on consoles don’t have to worry about this news.
Bethesda plans to make the transfer starting in April, with plans to retire the program by the end of the year. It will finish the transfer and remove the Bethesda.net launcher sometime in May.
Players Can Transfer Bethesda Games in April
While it appears Bethesda is still working out the specifics, players will be able to migrate their games to Steam in a couple of months. Bethesda will offer players any title on Bethesda.net for free on Steam. However, not all game saves will transfer and may require manual copying, which Bethesda will provide at that time. Game saves that will transfer will likely be those in online games like Elder Scrolls: Online and Fallout 76.
Bethesda will not offer game transfers to any console or PC service that isn’t Steam, a massive win for the platform. This means increased revenue and player count on Steam’s platform as we move toward the Starfield release at the end of this year.
Keeping Bethesda.net Accounts
Bethesda is getting rid of its launcher doesn’t mean that players will lose access to their accounts that tie all the games together. Your Bethesda.net account is what ties all your services together, like mods, skins, and other critical in-game items. The in-game currency is also connected to your Bethesda account and will go with the Steam transfer process.
According to the official Bethesda post, it will also transfer friends lists in the merge. This means that all players who complete the merge will still see other players in Fallout 76, Doom Eternal, Deathloop, and more. However, players who don’t complete the merge by the cutoff date will likely not appear in your transferred friends list.
This is a massive win for Steam, which has faced competing launchers in recent years. It’s a wonder why the Xbox-owned company doesn’t transfer to the Xbox platform on PC.
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