Out of the Dark and Into the Spotlight

Howard said the game is designed for players who want to explore every nook and cranny as well as for those who just want to experience the story line. "You're going to save the world in 20 hours," he said, "but this game has 200 hours in it."

Bethesda has dabbled in many genres, but the company's standing among gamers is built largely upon the 10-year-old Elder Scrolls series. The previous installment sold about 4 million copies, counting Xbox and PC versions and two subsequent add-on packs that expanded the adventures.

David Cole, game industry analyst and president of DFC Intelligence, said that Bethesda has a "good reputation" among gamers, though the company has not released any titles that have become household names. Role-playing games, the type that Bethesda is best known for, are the fastest-growing genre in the industry, he said.

Altman said that Bethesda employs just over 100 people and that the staff will probably double in the next six months as the company gears up to make more cutting-edge titles. The company's kitchen is out of commission to make way for the growth; in the works are a sound studio and a "motion-capture" studio, where an actor's movements are recorded before they are translated digitally into the game world.

In development is a sequel to a popular role-playing game called "Fallout," to which Bethesda recently acquired the rights. The company also has action games in the works for Disney's next "Pirates of the Caribbean" movie.

The video game industry is dominated by huge, publicly owned publishers such as Electronic Arts Inc. that release dozens of titles a year. By comparison, Bethesda is tiny and privately held -- and didn't have any major releases last year.

Bethesda parent ZeniMax was founded in 1999 to make content and technology for a new type of interactive television, but the subsequent tech bust made potential companies wary of new investments in the field, Altman said.

ZeniMax's Business Advisory Board is loaded with Democratic Party players of Altman's acquaintance, including Tony Coelho, Terence R. McAuliffe and former U.S. senator George J. Mitchell of Maine.

Altman came to Bethesda Softworks after meeting founder Weaver in the early '90s. Weaver's wife was an obstetrician-gynecologist whose patients included Altman's wife, actress Lynda Carter -- former star of the TV show "Wonder Woman" and currently featured in "The Dukes of Hazzard" movie.

Weaver has not been a part of the company for three years, however; he said this week that Altman had essentially kicked him out.

Now a visiting scholar at MIT, Weaver says ZeniMax still owes him money from when the company failed to renew his contract. One lawsuit against the company has gone nowhere; Weaver said he may pursue an appeal.

Altman responded that Weaver's account is "fantasy."

"Bethesda Softworks was a financially bankrupt business which ZeniMax Media acquired, recapitalized and turned around," he said. "I regret that he is unhappy."

But all that corporate back story isn't going to matter much in the marketplace, where gamers will judge the company based on its goods.

The early returns are encouraging. GamePro magazine, for example, picked "Oblivion" as one of three top games for Microsoft's Xbox 360, out of dozens of offering including many from larger publishers.