Most recently, Vogel worked at Bioware where he served as the executive producer on the development of Star Wars: The Old Republic. Rich has a long history in the industry having worked on Ultima Online, and Star Wars Galaxies as well as other online and console titles during his 20+ years in game development. The new studio is currently hiring other experienced game developers to fill key roles for an unannounced project.

“I have always admired and respected Bethesda’s approach to making great, original games,” said Vogel. “It’s a belief and passion I share, and I’m looking forward to building a team of high quality developers who want to bring that same commitment and creative energy to the games we’ll be creating.”

“We are very pleased to have someone with Rich’s vast experience join us at Bethesda,” said Vlatko Andonov, President of Bethesda Softworks. “Rich has a history of building and managing talented development teams and bringing high quality games to market, and we look forward to working with him on a new exciting project.”