In a surprising turn of events today, it appears that id Software has been bought by ZeniMax. You may not know the name ZeniMax, but surely you are familiar with their subsidiary, acclaimed developer and publisher Bethesda Softworks. That’s right: Doom, Wolfenstein, Fallout, and The Elder Scrolls are now all part of one big, happy family. This deal will not affect the Activision-published Wolfenstein, which is due out later this summer. The next Doom title, however, will be a ZeniMax game.

According to Kotaku, the deal came about because id was tired of dealing with outside publishers, and they will now be able to expand their internal teams and handle their key franchises. ZeniMax CEO Robert Altman describes the merger as “a win for fans of id”, and I’m inclined to agree. The Doom and Wolfenstein series are near and dear to my heart, and Bethesda has done amazing things in gaming (with more promising titles due out this year and next). I’m really excited to see what this will mean for the next Doom game. Open-world first-person shooter on Mars? One can only hope.