Once Upon A Time, Bethesda Almost Went Out of Business

Developer Bethesda Game Studios was almost shut down in the late nineties, executive producer and game director Todd Howard revealed recently.

Speaking in an interview with German gaming publication Gamestar, translated by Kotaku, Howard spoke of the difficult times following the developer's release of The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall.

"We spread ourselves thin. We started doing a lot of games, and they just weren't good enough. And they weren't the kind of games we should've been making at the time," Howard said.

With Zenimax's acquisition of Bethesda, he described the studio as being granted "a new lease on life" which it was able to use to work on The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind. The game went on to be well-received by critics, and is what Howard describes as "kind of the new genesis of Bethesda." According to him, "bits of code" that were used in Morrowind still appear in Bethesda games today.