Pete Hines settles the score with Microsoft after leaving Bethesda in October 2023

After spending 24 years at Bethesda Softworks, Pete Hines left the company in October 2023. At the time, he was the head of publishing at the studio behind Fallout, The Elder Scrolls, DOOM, and Wolfenstein.

In a recent interview, Hines discussed the reasons behind his departure. Suffice it to say, he didn’t mince words, directly pointing the finger at Microsoft. Keep in mind that the American tech giant had acquired the publisher in March 2021.

Pete Hines revealed that he didn’t really want to leave, but that Bethesda had changed too much under Microsoft’s leadership. According to him, the company found itself “damaged, broken, and, frankly, mistreated and abused” under its new owner’s leadership.

“I was staying there because this place still needs me. I just hit a point of yes, it needs me, and I am powerless to do what I think needs to be done to run this place properly, to protect these people, to maintain what we worked so hard to create, which is an incredibly efficient, well run video game developer and publisher. […].

And when I couldn’t protect it, and I saw how it was getting damaged and broken apart and frankly mistreated, abused, whatever word you want to use, I said I am not going to sit here and watch this happen right in front of me.“

He also noted that the delay of Starfield had postponed his departure. A situation that took a heavy toll on his morale.

“I think I’ve done everything I can do. This is not when I wanted it to end or how I wanted it to end, but that’s not really up to me. And at a certain point, truthfully, my mental health was so deplorable that I just said I cannot.”

So, we are a long way from the friendly atmosphere displayed between Microsoft and Bethesda at the time of the acquisition. Clearly, a lot of negative things were going on internally.