Bethesda Softworks has purchased the mobile games development company Alpha Dog Games. Although normally known for sprawling, open world adventures like those found in the Fallout and Elder Scrolls series, Bethesda has been branching out into the free-to-play mobile games market over the past few years, first with the release of Fallout: Shelter, a base-building exploration-type game, and later with The Elder Scrolls: Blades, which was intended to be a free-to-play version of a normal Elder Scrolls experience.
Both games have seen their fair share of controversy, although it's nothing compared to what's been going on with Fallout 76. Shelter was generally well-received by fans, with the game proving to be so popular other companies began copying it, leading to Bethesda settling a lawsuit with Behaviour Interactive over a Westworld game which they claimed was a direct clone of Fallout: Shelter. Elder Scrolls: Blades, while not as groundbreaking as Shelter, still sold well enough to justify a port to the Nintendo Switch, however fans were upset the console version of the game still contained all the free-to-play microtransactions of the original.
With the recent acquisition of Alpha Dog Games, Bethesda Softworks and their parent company ZeniMax Media are surely looking to increase their presence in the mobile gaming market. The company advertises two titles on their official website, Monstrocity: Rampage and Wraithborne, and features a company statement which emphasizes how important it is for Alpha Dog Games to "give the player genuine value for their time no matter what."
Monstrocity: Rampage sees players taking on the role of a mad scientist tasked with both creating powerful monsters and building a city up from a small town to a thriving metropolis and features real-time strategy gameplay. Wraithborne labels itself a "Whack-and-Smash" experience which takes places in a dark fantasy world developed in the Unreal Engine. Both games are currently available to download for free on mobile devices.
From reports of player loot disappearing in Fallout 76 to an entire website dedicated to insulting Bethesda's recent unveiling of the premium membership program Fallout 1st, news of a completely separate developer joining the Bethesda Softworks umbrella family has been slightly tainted by the company's actions over the past few days. Hopefully Alpha Dog Games' company values, notably the 'giving player value for the time they invest in the game' part, will rub off on the larger company, because right now many players of Bethesda products aren't feeling like their time is worth very much at all to them.
Source: Alpha Dog Games