Xbox's Bethesda Roundtable Was A Huge Disappointment For Zoom Background Easter Egg Hunters

Microsoft has made a habit of dropping Easter eggs in its remote streams during the coronavirus pandemic. So with the Bethesda-Xbox roundtable event celebrating the acquisition, surely we were going to be teased about the setting of Elder Scrolls VI, a Starfield-themed Xbox console, and the blood type of Doomguy, right? As it turns out, nope.

That may be in part because of the venue. Rather than a remote event in which we spied on the offices of various Xbox executives, this one was held at Bethesda headquarters. That office space has plenty of Bethesda decor, ranging from a life-sized Doom Slayer to Corvo's mask from Dishonored, but none of that seems to be particularly new or unexpected.

The one remote call came from Xbox head of partnerships Sarah Bond, who joined in from Xbox headquarters in Redmond. Similarly, her background was adorned with framed art based on huge Xbox franchises like Halo and Minecraft, and less-huge Xbox franchises like State of Decay.

Again, there don't appear to be any hidden clues or Easter eggs hidden back there, unless it's the one picture obscured behind Bond's head. It kind of feels like that would be cheating.

Todd Howard's Indiana Jones fandom once even sparked (false) rumors that he was dropping clues before Bethesda announced its Indy game. As it turns out, he's just a big fan of Indiana Jones, so the appearance was coincidental. But this time, he doesn't seem to have revealed any such hidden interests.

Unless...

Computer, enhance.

Okay, yeah, that isn't anything and this is getting sad.

It looks like this time, at least, the event didn't drop any teasers for things to come--unless Microsoft and Bethesda surprise us with an announcement in a few months and then we learn that the clues were hiding here all along. It's not outside the realm of possibility, but it's much less likely that they're hiding unannounced projects now that we're all looking for them.

What we did get out of the event is significant, however. The companies announced 20 more Bethesda games joining Xbox Game Pass, touched on in-development games like Starfield, and hinted that Bethesda games may well be exclusive to Xbox--or at least anywhere that Game Pass goes.