Some of you may recognize Arkane Studios as the developer of Arx Fatalis, the game that many considered to be, unofficially of course, Ultima Underworld 3.

Well, they’ve just been purchased by Zenimax, who are also the parent company of Bethesda Softworks.

Here’s the interesting part:

Arkane Studios is already working on a project with Bethesda Softworks, though no specific information about the game is available, yet.

The most optimistic appraisal of this news is that it hints at a return, by Arkane, to the RPG genre, which would be nice to see. Not that their proposed shooter, The Crossing, didn’t sound interesting, of course. But Arx Fatalis was pretty amazing, and very clearly Ultima-inspired, and it’s really pretty to think that they might be returning to those roots…with help from the Bethesda powerhouse, no less.