AMD and Bethesda Softworks Partner to Propel PC Gaming Forward

By Nathan Kirsch February 28, 2017

Groundbreaking, multi-title strategic partnership brings the companies top talent together to speed pace of game technology development and leverage latest disruptions in CPU and GPU technology from AMD

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. February 28, 2017 AMD (NASDAQ: AMD) and Bethesda Softworks today announced a long-term strategic partnership to rapidly advance game technology development, fuel new PC game experiences, and reshape the gaming landscape. The collaboration brings together two titans of the gaming industry: Bethesda Softworks, whose storied 30-year history has produced legendary games including those in The Elder Scrolls series, Fallout 3 and 4, DOOM, Wolfenstein: The New Order, Quake, and Dishonored, with more than 80 million copies sold; and AMD, whose CPU and GPU technologies power the experiences of 400 million gamers worldwide.

Announced on stage at the AMD Capsaicin webcast and press event during the 2017 Game Developers Conference, the multi-title agreement will see the two companies collaborate to develop and accelerate the implementation of new technologies, including the full potential of low-level APIs, such as Vulkan, and the computing and graphics power of AMD Ryzen CPUs, Radeon GPUs, and AMD server solutions across existing Bethesda franchises. The close-knit strategic partnership will combine hardware, software and game engineering talents at both companies with the creative genius of Bethesda content developers to deliver extraordinary experiences on upcoming hardware architectures.

This is a disruptive moment in the industry as games demand increasingly more power from todays graphics architectures to deliver detailed worlds and characters at ever higher resolutions, frame rates, and quality settings, said Raja Koduri, senior vice president and chief architect, Radeon Technologies Group. Working independently, game developers and graphics companies will eventually address the challenges of this new era of gaming; but working in close collaboration, the pace of that progress can advance exponentially. Bethesda is an undisputed leader in the games industry and an ideal strategic partner to jointly tackle this transformative period in gaming.

Of the strategic partnership, Bethesda President Vlatko Andonov said AMD Radeon graphics architectures represent a true commitment to developers, inviting them to use the hardware as a blank canvas through low-level access to the silicon, and empowering them with architectural advancements that enable them to bring their gaming visions to life without compromise. AMD Ryzen represents one of the most important disruptions to the CPU market in a long time. Our relationship with AMD represents an exciting and powerful opportunity for Bethesda to further advance game experiences for our fans, significantly expand our presence in gaming and VR, and engage with new generations of gamers around the world.

The promising potential of an AMD/Bethesda strategic partnership was demonstrated just last summer in a successful collaborative engineering effort to inject Vulkan API technology into DOOM. The result delivered unprecedented performance alongside improved visual fidelity. Besides making history as the first AAA title to utilize Vulkan, the alliance resulted in a smooth, highly optimized DOOM experience for AMD Ryzen processors and Radeon graphics card owners and will inspire wider adoption of the Vulkan API.

For more information on upcoming Bethesda games harnessing AMD technology, follow AMD, Radeon, Ryzen and Bethesda social channels.

Supporting Resources

Check out the Vega Preview Cinematic Trailer

Check out http://ve.ga, the Vega architecture preview portal

Follow @WeAreRadeon on Instagram

Follow Bethesda on Twitter at @bethesda

Check out Bethesda of Facebook at Facebook.com/bethesdasoftworks

About AMD

For more than 45 years AMD has driven innovation in high-performance computing, graphics, and visualization technologies the building blocks for gaming, immersive platforms, and the datacenter. Hundreds of millions of consumers, leading Fortune 500 businesses, and cutting-edge scientific research facilities around the world rely on AMD technology daily to improve how they live, work, and play. AMD employees around the world are focused on building great products that push the boundaries of what is possible.

For more information about how AMD is enabling today and inspiring tomorrow, visit the AMD (NASDAQ: AMD) website, blog, Facebook and Twitter pages.
About Bethesda Softworks Bethesda Softworks, part of the ZeniMax Media Inc. family of companies, is a worldwide publisher of interactive entertainment software. Titles featured under the Bethesda label include such blockbuster franchises as The Elder Scrolls, DOOM, QUAKE, Fallout, Wolfenstein, Dishonored, The Evil Within, and RAGE. For more information on Bethesda Softworks products, visit www.bethsoft.com.