Doom | Xbox One

Bethesda Softworks LLC is an American video game publisher based in Rockville, Maryland. The company was founded by Christopher Weaver in 1986 as a division of Media Technology Limited, and in 1999 became a subsidiary of ZeniMax Media. In its first fifteen years, it was a video game developer and self-published its titles. In 2001, Bethesda spun off its own in-house development team into Bethesda Game Studios, and Bethesda Softworks retained only its publishing function. In 2021, Microsoft purchased ZeniMax, maintaining that the company will continue to operate as a separate business. Bethesda Softworks was founded by Christopher Weaver in Bethesda, Maryland, in 1986. It started as a division of Media Technology Limited, an engineering research and development firm of which Weaver was the founder and chief executive officer. He created Bethesda "to see if the PC market was a viable place to develop games". Weaver initially intended to name the company "Softworks" but found that the name was taken. Consequently, he prepended this name with that of Bethesda.