Bethesda founds Battlecry Studios to craft free-to-play MMO for Xbox 360

I dislike the idea of mmo games or free to play, so long as main fallout titles and elder scrolls still remain paid for single player games I'll be happy.

I'm disappointed in Bethesda for doing this, but I have no doubts that the main Fallout and Elder Scrolls games will remain as they have always been. Bethesda have always been very clear that they don't want their main games hindered by alternative titles and spin offs, which is why Obsidian made New Vegas, and the ES MMO is being made by a special set up division just for that game. I hate the free to pay model, and I'm disappointed that Bethesda are jumping on the bandwagon, but I'll still be able to play my favourite Bethesda games the way I always have, so it's not a major issue for me.

I think the key challenge for devs like Battlecry is to tell a compelling story in a free-to-play game - anybody can throw together a world and lots of micro-transactable characters/items, but joining them all together into a narrative without compromising the monetisation model is the trick. The Old Republic's sort of there, from what I hear. Halo 4's (free, 50-mission) Spartan Ops DLC should make an interesting contribution, too.

Frankly I expected this. Bethesda have spent too much time and effort fighting legal battles over the MMO rights not to use them, and F2P is pretty much the only way a MMO still works as the huge drop off in subscribers to The Old Republic and WoW show.