Former Bethesda Softworks marketing lead Pete Hines has opened up about how he saw the Fallout publisher get “damaged and broken apart” before announcing his retirement in 2023.
The now-retired gaming industry veteran touched on why he chose to step away from Bethesda during a wide-ranging interview with Firezide Chat. When reminiscing about his decades-long journey through the release of everything from Doom to The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim, Hines shared his feelings about changes within the company and what ultimately drove him to leave.
Hines had previously stated that it made sense for him to retire around the launch of the long-awaited Starfield and reiterated that point in the new interview. Although moving on meant leaving colleagues like Bethesda’s Todd Howard and Erin Losi, there was more than simple timing influencing his decision.
“I just hit a point of yes, [Bethesda] needs me, and I am powerless to do what I think needs to be done to run this place properly, to protect these people, to maintain what we worked so hard to create, which is an incredibly efficient, well run video game developer and publisher,” he explained.
“And when I was unable to do what I thought my job should involve in continuing to have that place be, you know, if not the most efficient publisher in the game industry, it was way the f**k up there. And when I couldn’t protect it, and I saw how it was getting damaged and broken apart and frankly mistreated, abused, whatever word you want to use, I said I am not going to sit here and watch this happen right in front of me.”
Hines continued, saying, “This is not when I wanted it to end or how I wanted it to end.” However, he said attempting to maintain his role at Bethesda took a toll on his mental health, adding that he eventually made the decision to leave sometime in 2022, the year before Starfield launched.
“Every time Todd delayed Starfield, I thought, f**k, I’m here another eight months,” he said. “And Todd was the only one who knew. It’s another reason I love that man. He showed up for me when I was just at my wit’s end and got me through that, and got me out of there in a way that I still retained my sanity.”
Hines refrained from speaking in detail about any individual event, person, or decision that caused him to consider exiting in the first place. The timeline leading to the Hines’ retirement includes Microsoft’s announcement that it intended to acquire Bethesda parent company ZeniMax Media for $7.5 billion in 2020 before completing the acquisition in 2021. Emails revealed in 2023 also saw the former marketing lead express confusion over Microsoft’s decision to make Bethesda titles Xbox exclusive while pushing games like Call of Duty to other platforms.
“Yeah, that was the worst f**king part,” Hines continued in the Firezide Chat interview. “It was to join a place that I genuinely was a fan of and people there I genuinely held in high regard and esteem, and then to get there and see how it actually worked.
“To talk is something, right? But I’m very much about what is the follow up to that? Do you mean what you say? Or are you just saying s**t that sounds good and then as soon as you leave this room that’s completely forgotten?”
He admitted that Bethesda may not have always been able to do what it said it was going to do. However, he feels it at least always tried, adding, “We are going to do what we say and say what we do and be genuine and be authentic.”
“And truthfully, I still think Bethesda is just part of something that is not authentic and is not genuine,” he continued. “And that shouldn’t be a surprise to you.”
Hines has been vocal about changes at Bethesda in the years since his retirement. In September 2025, he remembered the early days of his 24-year run at the game publisher, arguing that it’s “not the same” anymore. The same interview saw him discussing how it came up with the name of 2017’s Prey, the launch of Fallout 76, and why subscription services like Game Pass need developers to survive.
Photo by Christian Petersen/Getty Images.
Michael Cripe is a freelance writer with IGN. He’s best known for his work at sites like The Pitch, The Escapist, and OnlySP. Be sure to give him a follow on Bluesky (@mikecripe.bsky.social) and Twitter (@MikeCripe).
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