Bethesda is one of the leading video game companies in the world. The company has a long history, that started in 1986 when it was founded. Due to good games, which led to record profits, the company expanded over time, acting both as a publisher and developer.
In the beginning, the studio was known for producing games based on films, like The Terminator, Star Wars, and Pirates of the Caribbean, with their first game being Gridiron!, a football arcade game developed for Atari and Amiga. Still, as a developer, Bethesda is today well known for The Elder Scrolls and Fallout series. The two series are today recognized as the best and most profitable with millions of copies sold worldwide, and below are the ten bestselling that Bethesda created.
10 The Elder Scrolls: Arena – 1 Million
The Elder Scrolls: Arena is first on the list. It was the first game in the Elder Scrolls Series and it introduced players to the continent of Tamriel and its wilderness and dungeons. It was an MS-DOS game, released in 1994, so the data of its commercial is rather obscure. It sold only 3 000 copies upon release, but sales later increased.
Critical reception was also good, and gamers were buying it and playing it months after release. In 2004 the game was released as freeware, obviously increasing its sales. While there are no official estimates of how many copies the game did sell we can safely assume it was over a million.
9 The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall – 1 Million
The development of The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall began immediately after the release of the original game. Like its predecessor, it based in Tamriel with over 15 000 cities, towns villages, and dungeons, for the players to explore.
The game was a big hit after its release with 100 000 copies sold after two days of its release. As a result, the retailers were faced with shortages of the game. The good commercial performance later continued and the game achieved lifetime sales of around 2 million. The game was later available for a free download on the Bethesda website.
8 Fallout 76 – 2.46 Million
While the studio invested a lot of time, money, and effort in producing a game, it, however, underperformed commercially and had lower sales than its two previous Fallout games, which quickly resulted in a price drop of the game.
Fallout 76 managed to sell 1.4 million copies in the year of its release and the game’s sales increased over time, to 2.46 million but they never reached that of the other installments of the series. Sales were lackluster as was the critical reception, which failed to impress critics and obviously the audience. In the end, the game was also marked with controversy after publishing its poor quality special edition game.
7 The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind – 4 Million
The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind serves as the third installment in the series. The story is based on Vvenderfall, an island of Durmer, which is a province of Morrowind. The gameplay is similar to its predecessor, featuring an open world and various creatures and quest, the game was a however a major leap in terms of graphics.
The game was a critical and commercial success for Bethesda. It sold 95 000 copies in the first month of its release and sold more than 300 000 copies in the year of its release. From the last available data, the game managed to sell more than 4 million copies worldwide.
6 The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion – 9.5 Million
The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion outperformed its predecessor both critically and commercially. It featured a better story, graphics, and a bigger world with more diverse and richer content.
The game sold 1.4 million copies in the month of its release and after the years sales climbed to 3 million copies. Electronic Entertainment Desing and Research, a market research firm, estimates that the game sold 9.5 million copies worldwide. The game also shined critically receiving many “game of the year” awards, and today is considered as one of the best games ever made.
5 Fallout 3 – 12.4 Million
Fallout 3 managed to outperform all of the previous Fallout installments combined sales, having 57 percent stronger sales in the first week of its release than The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion.
The game sold 4.7 million copies in the first year of its release grossing 300 million dollars. The sales continued to climb, and the game’s sales were boosted by 1 000 percent following Bethesda’s announcement of Fallout 3 at the Electronic Entertainment Expo. The lifetime sales later reached 12.4 million according to Electronic Entertainment Desing and Research, a company that conducted the research.
4 Fallout 4 – 13.51 Million
Fallout 4 is a sequel to the previous game on the list, with the story occurring 10 years after the events of the game. This time it follows a character named “Sole Survivor” who emerges from the long-term cryogenic stasis in Vault 111. The game features similar gameplay to Fallout 3, which equally large world and content in the post-apocalyptic wasteland of the USA.
Like its predecessor, the game had a strong commercial performance upon release and sold 1.2 million copies on Steam in the first 24 hours of its release, while during the same time it shipped 12 million copies to the retailers, grossing 750 million dollars.
3 The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim – 30 Million
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is one of the best selling games in history, as well as being critically acclaimed at the same time. It had an impressive launch and sold 3.4 million physical copies in the first 48 hours of its release — of that were 59 percent for Xbox 360, 27 percent for PlayStation 3, and 14 percent for Microsoft Windows. Bethesda also shipped 7 million copies in the first week, while the game also being the fastest-selling on Steam to that date.
The sales climbed to 20 million after two years and in 2016 the game’s director Todd Howard confirmed that the game sold over 30 million copies.
2 The Elder Scrolls: Blades – 120 Million
The Elder Scrolls: Blades is a free-to-play RPG published for Android, iOS, and Nintendo Switch. It received worse reviews than the other games in the series, with critique being appointed at its long loading screens, lack of innovation, and use of microtransactions.
The game was a commercial success, with 1 million downloads on the iOS platform in the week of release. It was later reported that the player spending in the game is bringing 50 000 dollars in earnings a day. The game was downloaded approximately 120 million times, which obviously includes re-downloads of the same users.
1 Fallout Shelter – 150 Million
Fallout Shelter is a free-to-play simulation video game first published for iOS and then ported to other platforms. In the game, the player builds and manages their own Vault as an Overseer. He also directs and guides the citizens of Vault and needs to keep them happy by giving them food, water, and power.
On the day of its release Fallout Shelter became the third highest-grossing game in App Store. Despite mixed reviews, from its publishing in 2015 the game was downloaded more than 150 million times, earning 100 million dollars during the same time.
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