Metacrtic has released its 14th annual game publisher rankings, listing the best and worst of them based on their 2023 releases. This year’s edition is full of interesting shifts, with many indie publishers climbing up and last year’s winner Sony dropping out of the top 10.

Despite its strong launch, Starfield continues to lose its appeal among players. It is now one of the worst-rated games in Bethesda’s portfolio on Steam.

Fallout 76 has been played by 17 million users, according to Bethesda. The game has reached this mark in five years since its launch in November 2018.

Starfield remains one of the most played games from Xbox’s first-party studios even three months after its launch. So it is no surprise that Microsoft considers it one of its most important releases and has plans for its long-term support.

Bruce Nesmith, book author and former design director at Bethesda who has contributed to most of the studio’s major games since Daggerfall, has shared his thoughts on Baldur’s Gate 3. He also pointed out the difference in Larian’s and Bethesda’s approaches to game content.

Now that Activision Blizzard has joined Microsoft, it has one of the most impressive portfolios of game studios in the industry. Let’s take a closer look at all of its development and publishing subsidiaries, as well as their key IPs.

Pete Hines, head of publishing at Bethesda Softworks, has announced his retirement. He has been with the company since 1999, supervising the PR and marketing of games like TES III: Morrowind, Fallout 3, TES V: Skyrim, and Dishonored.

Two weeks after its global launch, Starfield has hit another milestone. It is now Bethesda’s biggest launch in terms of player count, with the studio calling the numbers “astronomical.”

Starfield has become Bethesda’s largest game launch of all time. Let’s compare its numbers to other Xbox first-party games and see Microsoft’s love for vague stats.

Starfield is the first new IP created by Bethesda in nearly 30 years. The game has finally launched globally on PC and Xbox, receiving generally favorable reviews from players and showing some great numbers.

Starfield is now available for owners of the Premium edition, already attracting hundreds of thousands of players. Let’s take a look at the game’s early launch numbers and how they compare to other titles from Bethesda.

The enhanced version of Quake II came out last week, offering updated graphics and even new content. Looking at all the technical and QoL improvements, it is safe to say that other companies would be better off taking a similar approach to rereleases and remasters of their old games.

Bethesda parent company ZeniMax has a new subsidiary in Europe. According to third-party sources, it has acquired Hungurian studio Nemesys Games, known for its work on The Elder Scrolls Online.

It’s been two weeks since Mighty DOOM launched on mobile devices. Let’s look at the game’s revenue, downloads, and other metrics.

Joseph Staten, an industry veteran hired to help ship Halo Infinite, is now leaving 343 Industries to rejoin Xbox’s publishing division. This is a result of mass layoffs at Microsoft and the studio’s restructuring.

Hundreds of workers at ZeniMax Media have started taking steps to form their own union. This would require recognition from Microsoft, which pledged to stay neutral throughout this process.

It has been 11 years since the latest Elder Scrolls title came out. While Todd Howard wants the new game to come out as soon as possible, he believes that Bethesda must figure out how to create projects that can be played for decades.

Bethesda has postponed the launches of both Starfield and Redfall to the first half of 2023. This decision leaves Xbox with almost no big first-party games for the rest of the year.

Metacritic has shared its list of top game publishers of 2021, with Microsoft leaping to the first place. The company has outperformed other big companies, including Sony, Activision Blizzard, and EA.