Pete Hines, who worked at Bethesda Game Studios for nearly a quarter of a century, left the company in October 2023. At the time, he explained his departure by saying that after the launch of Starfield, it was the right moment to move on. However, in a new interview for the Fireside Chat series with Kirk McKeand, the former vice president of marketing was surprisingly candid about the real reasons.
Hines admitted that he didn't want to leave - parting with the team was extremely difficult. But what the company became under Microsoft's wing no longer suited him.
>"I stayed because this place still needed me. But I just reached a point - yes, it needs me and I am powerless to do what I consider necessary to properly manage this place. To protect these people, to preserve what we had worked so hard to build - an incredibly efficient, well-managed video game developer and publisher."
>"When I couldn't protect that and watched it all being broken, destroyed, and frankly, mishandled, abused - pick any word - I said: I'm not going to sit and watch this happen right in front of me."
Hines' departure came at a turning point for Xbox - the disastrous launch of the exclusive Redfall earlier in 2023 and the subsequent decision to port some exclusives to PS5.
Hines himself was one of the witnesses at the Federal Trade Commission's hearings on the Microsoft Activision Blizzard acquisition. He had previously sent internal emails complaining that Call of Duty remained multiplatform while Bethesda's games were forced to become Xbox exclusives.
In court, he had to defend the position that Indiana Jones and the Great Circle would benefit from releasing on only one platform. The game was originally planned as multiplatform but later did release on PS5 and Nintendo Switch 2.
According to Hines, Todd Howard was the only person who knew about his plans to leave for a long time. Each new delay of Starfield pushed back his departure by several months, which took a heavy toll on his mental state.
>"I think I did everything I could. This isn't the moment or the way I wanted things to end, but it wasn't entirely up to me. And at a certain point, honestly, my mental health was in such a terrible state that I just said - I can't."
Hines called facing the reality of the new leadership the hardest moment of his career.
>"Coming to a place I genuinely admired, with people I genuinely respected, and seeing how it actually works."
>"Talking is one thing. But I take very seriously what follows words. Do you mean what you say? Or are you just saying pretty words, and as soon as you leave the room, it's all forgotten? Because Bethesda never worked that way."
Hines, who joined Bethesda right after college and rose from writing guides to representing the studio's games on the E3 stage, concluded with a direct statement.
>"That doesn't mean everything Bethesda promised, we delivered. Yeah, we probably didn't always do that, but the intention was exactly that. We were going to do what we said and say what we did, to be sincere and genuine. And honestly, I still believe that Bethesda is just part of something bigger that is not real and not genuine. And that shouldn't come as a surprise to you."
Microsoft completed its acquisition of ZeniMax and all its studios, including Bethesda, in 2021. Hines left the company two years after the deal.
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Asha Sharma, who leads the Xbox brand, has made it clear that community feedback is now a priority.
The creation of a special team has been announced, tasked with analyzing and implementing suggestions directly from players. The initiative is already showing results: recent system updates have focused on real user needs.
This team was behind the recent achievement system update - adding improvements that make earning and viewing achievements easier. Sharma doesn't hide her enthusiasm and notes that this is just the beginning: new "by players, for players" features are being prepared and will be released soon.
It is assumed these are the same specialists who previously prepared new console dashboard features in just two weeks. Sharma specifically urged the community to keep sharing feedback: "keep the feedback coming."
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