Bethesda and Behaviour Interactive, the developer of the Westworld mobile game, have agreed and will settle on the lawsuit that Bethesda filed in June 2018. In the lawsuit, Bethesda accused Behaviour’s Westworld of being a “blatant ripoff” of Fallout Shelter and citing that Behaviour had breached their contract with the company, as well as infringed upon Bethesda’s copyright.
Bethesda felt it had a strong case, especially considering that Behaviour Interactive also worked on Fallout Shelter. Not only did the Westworld game have similar gameplay features to Bethesda’s title, but Westworld also displayed some of the same bugs, indicating that the title, based on the HBO series of the same name, re-used code from Fallout Shelter. Bethesda also accused Behaviour Interactive of copying Fallout Shelter’s game design, art and animations, along with other features. The suit included Warner Bros. suggesting that it encouraged Behaviour to re-use the code from Fallout Shelter to speed up Westworld’s timeline and release. Warner Bros. denied that any plagiarism occurred.
In an official statement sent to Screen Rant, Bethesda and Behaviour Interactive announced that the two companies had come to an agreement over the matter and that the parties had “amicably resolved the lawsuit.” There is no indication of how much money was involved in the settlement, but for all intents and purposes, it seems that the matter is now officially closed.
This is the second lawsuit Bethesda has recently resolved. In December 2018, the Bethesda-owned ZeniMax announced a settlement in its suit for an undisclosed amount against Facebook. In that case, ZeniMax claimed that Facebook used its code with the Oculus VR headset, suggesting that several former ZeniMax employees took the code with them when Facebook hired them to work on Oculus.
Bethesda might have another day in court, though, if Fallout 76 fans follow through on a class action lawsuit against the company over its botched release of that title. Fallout 76 is a huge source of contention for Bethesda, thanks to game-breaking bugs, expensive store items and special pre-order editions not arriving with promised merchandise. The game continues to have issues.
The backlash from Fallout 76 is so bad that one analyst even predicts that the company will release The Elder Scrolls 6 in 2019 to try and appease its fans. That’s highly unlikely, but the industry has taken notice of Bethesda’s fall from grace. At least with this lawsuit settled, Bethesda can put a checkmark in its “win” column.
