Activision Blizzard and Bethesda have had seven trademarks approved for registration in Russia. The list of approved names includes Call of Duty, Fallout, Quake, Dishonored, Starfield, Wolfenstein and Deathloop, according to reports from Russian news agencies.
The filings were submitted to the federal service for intellectual property in October 2025 and have since received official approval. The information was reported by a national news outlet that monitors patent and trademark activity.
The move prompted mixed reactions online. Some observers suggested the registrations could be a step toward a formal commercial return to the Russian market, while others emphasized that trademark filing is a common administrative measure companies use to preserve legal rights to their brands regardless of immediate business plans.
Context matters: Activision Blizzard ceased operations in Russia in March 2022. Bethesda did not publicly announce an exit in the same terms but likewise suspended sales of its products in the country. Both companies are subsidiaries of Microsoft, which oversees their wider corporate and intellectual property strategy.
Legal experts note that registering a trademark in a jurisdiction does not automatically mean a company will resume sales or open offices there. Trademark registration primarily secures the owner’s exclusive rights to use the names and makes it easier to enforce those rights against unauthorized use, local publishers, or counterfeiters.
Possible practical outcomes include future licensing agreements with local partners, renewed commercial activity if corporate decisions change, or simply administrative preservation of brand portfolios while the companies evaluate geopolitical and economic conditions. None of these scenarios is confirmed by the filings themselves.
For Russian consumers and the local games market, the registrations are notable but not definitive. They remove one procedural obstacle to re-entry, but any actual return of products, services or support would require further corporate decisions, logistical arrangements and compliance with applicable regulations.