Bethesda faces broad class-action lawsuit over Fallout 4 DLC as Microsoft takeover looms

Bethesda Softworks and its parent firm, ZeniMax Media, are about to face some uncomfortable questions in a class-action lawsuit about how they treated the loyal fans of the 2015 hit game Fallout 4. And that’s an annoying problem, as Microsoft is getting ready to buy Bethesda Softworks in a $7.5 billion acquisition.

While ZeniMax’s founder was a lawyer — the recently deceased Robert Altman — and was known for being litigious (ask former Oculus chief technology officer John Carmack), attorneys in the class-action say that they are shocked at some of the legal mistakes that Bethesda has made in the case involving the downloadable content (DLC) for Fallout 4. It isn’t yet clear how much financial exposure the company has, but the attorneys suing it say it’s a lot of money. It’s not unreasonable to think it could be a billion-dollar-plus liability, the lawyers claim.