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.

Related: Hidden Connections Between The Elder Scrolls & Fallout Universes

With Starfield being their first new IP in decades, Bethesda has captured the minds and hearts of gamers once again with this epic spacefaring adventure. Despite not really enjoying the best reputation in modern times, fans are still extremely happy to get their hands on Starfield, turning it into another sales success for this massive studio that has already sold a wealth of titles in no time at all! Hopefully, this game marks a brand new chapter in this company's future, allowing them to develop a wealth of great games instead of being bombarded with criticism for their attempts to either make their experiences more casual in nature or being overly greedy in their attempts to get more money from a loyal fanbase.

Updated on September 16, 2023 by Ritwik Mitra: Bethesda is one of the biggest game studios around right now, establishing themselves as the kings of Western RPGs for the longest time before a string of poor decisions led to many people questioning their place on the throne. However, their immense influence over open-world game development can't be ignored, with the studio crafting a myriad of incredible titles that have gone on to become some of the best RPGs fans can ever get their hands on, leading to immense sales across the board. The sheer number of units that this company has sold with each title is truly mind-boggling and goes to prove just how popular the developer really is.

As up-to-date data for each game is not available, the most recent sales figures will be used as a reference and the year of their publication will be noted. Please note that all of these titles have sold more copies; however, this data should give a relatively clear indication of which games are Bethesda's highest sellers.

Bethesda's Highest-Selling Games

Game

Total Sales/Downloads (Data's Release Year)

The Elder Scrolls: Arena

3,000 (1994)

The Elder Scrolls 2: Daggerfall

120,000 (1996)

The Elder Scrolls: Blades

1 Million (2019)

Fallout 76

1.4 Million (2018)

The Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind

4 Million (2010)

The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion

9.5 Million (2015)

Fallout 4

12 Million (2015 – Launch Day)

Fallout 3

12.4 Million (2015)

The Elder Scrolls Online

18 Million (2021)

The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim

30 Million (2016)

Fallout Shelter

170 Million (2020)

Starfield

TBA

Special Mention: Starfield

Exploring a moon in Starfield

The hype that surrounded Starfield was through the roof, even if some players had become disillusioned by Bethesda and its promises by this point. The idea of playing a space-faring adventure is pretty alluring indeed, and Starfield does a great job of letting players get lost in its myriad of planets and quests... even if the act of seamlessly moving from one planet to another is nothing more than a pipe dream. Fast Travel and loading screens are prevalent in this game... but that isn't the worst thing in the world for players.

The game has hit the ground running, with many players enjoying the massive scope of this game despite the lack of seamless transitions between worlds and the janky character animation that has become a staple of most Bethesda RPGs. While official sales numbers aren't out yet, it doesn't take an expert to gauge that Bethesda is going to enjoy another multi-million unit-selling game to add to its list of rampant successes.

11 The Elder Scrolls: Arena

The Elder Scrolls: Arena (1994)
  • Total Sales: 3,000 (1994)

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, as was expected from the first title in a series that has gone on to become one of the biggest Western RPGs of all time.

Critical reception was also good, and gamers were buying it and playing it months after its release. In 2004 the game was released as freeware, obviously increasing its downloads. There are no official estimates of how many copies the game sold, although the fact that players can get it for free now means that a lot of people have definitely checked this game out.

10 The Elder Scrolls 2: Daggerfall

The Elder Scrolls 2 Daggerfall
  • Total Sales: 120,000 (1996)

The development of The Elder Scrolls 2: Daggerfall began immediately after the release of the original game. Like its predecessor, it's based in Tamriel with over 15,000 cities, towns, villages, and dungeons, for the players to explore. In fact, Daggerfall holds the record of having one of the biggest game worlds of all time... even though the landscape itself may be rather barren, for the most part.

The game was a big hit after its release with 100,000 copies sold within two days of its release. As a result, the retailers were faced with shortages of the game. The good commercial performance later continued, with the game selling out all of the 120,000 copies that were given to retailers at the time of launch.

9 The Elder Scrolls: Blades

The Elder Scrolls: Blades
  • Total Downloads: 1 Million (2019)

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 act of players spending in the game is bringing in $50,000 in earnings a day. While there's no denying that The Elder Scrolls: Blades is far from a good look for the series, it still serves as a treat for long-time fans who want to enjoy some Bethesda goodness on their phones.

8 Fallout 76

Fallout 76 character with automatic weapon
  • Total Sales: 1.4 Million (2018); 11 million players in 2021

While the studio invested a lot of time, money, and effort in producing Fallout 76, the game underperformed commercially and had lower sales than its two previous Fallout games, which quickly resulted in a price drop for the game. This was only a given since the quality of Fallout 76 was absolutely lackluster and nowhere near what was promised.

Related: Fallout 76: The Creepiest Locations In The Game, Ranked

Fallout 76 managed to sell 1.4 million copies in the year of its release. In 2021, Todd Howard claimed that the game had a total of 11 million players. Sales were as disappointing as 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.

For what it's worth, the expansions and new content updates released for Fallout 76 have helped mitigate most of the worst issues that the game faced. The most notable expansion of the lot is the Wastelanders update, which finally adds NPCs into the game along with better questlines. Fans who managed to grab this game on sale will be more than happy with the content that's currently on offer.

7 The Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind

The opening environment of Morrowind
  • Total Sales: 4 Million (2010)

The Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind serves as the third installment in the series. The story is based on Vvardenfell, which is a province of Morrowind. The gameplay is similar to its predecessor, featuring an open world and various creatures and quests. However, the game was 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.

Morrowind was one of the first Elder Scrolls titles to feature expansion packs, with both Tribunal and Bloodmoon being great additions in their own right. With all these expansions, The Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind was a game that was absolutely jam-packed with content and cemented The Elder Scrolls as one of the biggest game franchises of all time. To this day, there's something about the charm and scope of Morrowind's world that makes it such a tantalizing RPG to experience, with players loving the vibe of the game's world and how it instantly captures their attention from the very moment they get off the ship that brings them to the land of Vvardenfell.

6 The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion

Syl in The Elder Scrolls 4 Oblivion
  • Total Sales: 9.5 Million (2015)

The Elder Scrolls 4: 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 massive steps taken by this title further strengthened the legacy of The Elder Scrolls in the industry. 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 to be one of the best games ever made.

The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion also featured some truly horrid DLC that was the subject of much derision within the gaming community. However, the studio made up for this egregious act with the release of The Shivering Isles, which was an excellent addition to the established legacy of Oblivion. The game marked a huge change in how Bethesda approached an RPG, opting to streamline some facets of its gameplay while striving to improve other gameplay mechanics like combat while introducing new modes of travel like horse riding.

5 Fallout 4

Arturo Rodriguez in Fallout 4
  • Total Sales: 12 Million (2015)

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. It might not be the most beloved Bethesda title due to a host of puzzling creative decisions, but Fallout 4 is still a brilliant title that deserves all its recognition.

A big part of what increased Fallout 4's sales is definitely the expansion packs. Aside from the content upgrades for the workshops, Fallout 4 was graced by DLCs like Automatron, Far Harbor, and Nuka-World. All these DLCs have witnessed favorable reception from fans, some of whom still can't get enough of this amazing title.

While the available data puts it under Fallout 3, Fallout 4 has probably outsold its predecessor by quite a margin.

4 Fallout 3

Fallout 3 Protagonist looks at wasteland
  • Total Sales: 12.4 Million (2015)

Fallout 3 managed to outperform all the previous Fallout installments' combined sales, having 57% stronger sales in the first week of its release than The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion. The fact that this game was the first-ever 3D Fallout game was a fact that no person looked at lightly, and the impressive manner in which it managed to help the franchise evolve was quite a treat to witness for long-time fans of the series.

Related: Fallout 4: The Biggest Plot Holes In The Game

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 1000% following Bethesda's announcement of Fallout 3 at the Electronic Entertainment Expo. The lifetime sales later reached 12.4 million according to Electronic Entertainment Design and Research, a company that conducted the research.

3 The Elder Scrolls Online

the-elder-scrolls-online-ascendant-lord
  • Total Sales: 18 Million (2021)

The idea of an MMORPG set in the Elder Scrolls universe is obviously an appealing prospect for a whole host of reasons. After all, viewers have caught glimpses of the massive continent of Tamriel across each game in the series, and being able to explore all of these lands with friends sounds tantalizing. That being said, it wasn't smooth going for The Elder Scrolls Online from the get-go — as is the case with most MMORPGs upon launch, this game also had a myriad of issues that stemmed from connectivity problems, a lack of meaningful content, grindy gameplay, and everything else along the same lines.

Thankfully, it was clear that Bethesda was devoted to ensuring that the title would receive a steady stream of content updates while also benefiting from numerous fixes that would take care of most of the problems that cropped up since launch. As a result, The Elder Scrolls Online has quickly transformed into one of the most popular MMOs around that fans of the series should definitely check out. Exploring the different regions of Tamriel and interacting with the questlines that lie within makes for a great time, with the game absolutely loaded with content right now! The fact that the game has sold 18 million copies is proof enough of how wildly successful this title really is.

2 The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim

skyrim-college-of-winterhold-feature
  • Total Sales: 30 Million (2016)

The Elder Scrolls 5: 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. Bethesda also shipped 7 million copies in the first week, and the game was also the fastest-selling title 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. The release of the expansions Dawnguard, Hearthfire, and Dragonborn further cemented the game's legacy as being one of the most massive and enjoyable open-world titles ever made. This figure also does not take into account the Anniversary Edition that came out for the PS5 and Xbox Series X/S in 2021.

1 Fallout Shelter

Fallout Shelter
  • Total Downloads: 170 Million (2020)

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. The Overseer 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 the App Store. Despite mixed reviews, from its publishing in 2020 the game was downloaded more than 170 million times, earning $100 million in the process. For what it's worth, the game's art style and the allure of managing a vault with its many residents is definitely quite enticing in its own right, even if many people feel that the gameplay lacks any depth after a point and the addition of microtransactions can feel a bit too intrusive for their own good.

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