Bethesda have made three classic games from their catalog available to play for free, via Steam.
With the death of the Bethesda.net Launcher, the company has begun fully migrating over to Steam. As of May 11, 2022, players will no longer be able to play games via the Launcher, and will instead need to transfer their library over to Steam.
With the Launcher's run coming to an end, a selection of Bethesda's retro games has been made available, for free, on Steam. These are:
- The Elder Scrolls: Arena
- The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall
- Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory
Both Arena and Daggerfall, which first released in 1994 and 1996 respectively, have been made available to play on Steam for the first time. The two games, which have been free since the series' tenth and 15th anniversaries, will likely remain free for the foreseeable future. Elder Scrolls fans who have perhaps only played Oblivion or Skyrim might be put off by the complexity of these older titles, but they remain strong RPG classics. Those curious about how the series found its footing will likely see their addition to Steam as a great opportunity.
At the time of writing it seems that none of the three games can be downloaded to the player's Steam libraries. Instead, each carries the 'free-to-play' tag and can be launched directly from their respective Steam pages.
Elsewhere, news surrounding The Elder Scrolls VI remains minimal since its announcement at E3 2018. Bethesda are currently focused on Starfield, their upcoming RPG exclusive to Xbox.
