Former BioWare VP Heads New Bethesda Studio

Rich Vogel of Star Wars: The Old Republic fame is now flying the Bethesda flag.

Rich Vogel is best known as a Star Wars guy, having worked on both Star Wars: Galaxies for Sony and Star Wars: The Old Republic for BioWare. He was a co-director at SWTOR studio BioWare Austin for five years before moving up to vice president and executive producer, a post he held for two years before departing in July of this year.

And now he’s turned up at the head of Bethesda’s new Battlecry Studios, which is currently bringing on staff for an unannounced project. It’s not likely he’ll be doing anything Star Wars related this time around, but Vogel is also an MMO guy and that’s something that could be very relevant to Bethesda’s interests.

Both Vogel and Bethesda Softworks President Vlatko Antonov are pleased and excited and looking forward to all the usual things that get kicked around in press releases, so we won’t bother getting into any of that. Instead, we’ll note two things. First, that Bethesda appears deeply committed to the MMO market: Since The Elder Scrolls Online has already been announced, it’s not unreasonable to think that Vogel has been brought on board for a second MMO project, perhaps the Fallout MMO that Bethesda worked so hard to pry away from Interplay.

And second, that Bethesda – or, more precisely, its parent company ZeniMax Media – is very quietly building itself into a true industry heavyweight. Its stable includes Bethesda Game Studios, id Software, Arkane Studios and the MMO-dedicated ZeniMax Online Studios. That’s a pretty solid lineup by any measure and the addition of Battlecry, with Vogel at the helm, just makes it stronger.