There was a whole era of gaming from the late 90s to like 2010 where like a couple developers made something special, left, and then the company coasted on the code for a decade.
For me it was the Company of Heroes series.
Hot take: I’m fine with Bethesda taking their time to release a game if that means it’ll be higher quality. There are thousands of games released a week. Hi play something else in the meantime.
if that means it’ll be higher quality.
Hahahaha! That’s a good one.
Tbh I kinda hope Bethesda doesn’t make a new Fallout game, I predict if they do make a new one it’ll make Fallout 76 look like New Vegas in comparison.
Reposting my comment from another thread because I’m interested in spurring discussion.
Imo Bethesda is, in many ways, a victim of its own success. Morrowind and Oblivion were both solid entries that did well critically and financially, but no one was prepared for the massive impact of Skyrim. Its success transformed open-world fantasy games into a staple of AAA gaming, and the game has stayed relevant for over a decade.
However, even when it was first released, Skyrim fell short in several areas that were often overlooked due to the sheer “wow” factor of its open world. The game is plagued by bugs, many of which are game-breaking and persist even in recent re-releases. The AI is brain-dead, melee combat is clunky, and the quest design and writing often lack depth.
In the years since, the landscape of gaming has evolved. Numerous fantasy and open-world games have improved upon things that Skyrim did well, and raised the bar for what players expect from many areas where Skyrim fell short. Players today have a wealth of games to choose from and are less forgiving of these types of flaws. Starfield’s lukewarm reception reflects Bethesda’s seeming unwillingness—or inability—to update its design philosophy for a modern audience.
The expectations for The Elder Scrolls VI have become impossible for Bethesda to meet. These expectations are sky-high not only among fans but also from Bethesda’s new parent company, Microsoft. TES6 will almost certainly be a financial success, but Microsoft didn’t acquire Bethesda for just “decent” results like Starfield; they acquired the creators of Skyrim to make blockbuster hits that dominate the charts and win critical acclaim.
In the end, Bethesda knows they will never recapture the lightning-in-a-bottle success of Skyrim. So they’ll keep sitting on the IP, until Microsoft forces them to release something mediocre, and their studio joins many of the other classic RPG developers in obscurity
Maybe Todd Howard the Duck will tell us what’s going on
Everything is just working
We will get Skyrim re-releases 15 more times before we get an ES6 release.
I sometimes download Skyrim again, mod it for hours and as soon as I start a new game I realise I don’t even wanna play it.
You might be interested to know that there are several hardcore modding scenes, where the point is to mod the game for fun. The mod guides are updated every month or so and includes thousands of mods. It takes days to install, and actually playing is optional. In most cases, a new save is required every update, so modders keep an additional playable state if they actually want to play the game.
Lexy’s LOTD is my fav one, it’s only over a thousand mods, has very detailed instructions, and a very friendly community.
I just keeping modding games I actually wanna play like Rimworld or CP2077 but there’s really a scene for everyone and everything.
TESO and Star Field?
TES:O is a different team entirely, it’s made by ZeniMax it’s only published by Bethesda.
I never got the big deal with Skyrim. I’m not saying it’s bad, but I don’t get why people went all crazy for it. Bethesda over streamlined the Elder Scrolls series with Skyrim for the mainstream audience. By removing and/or simplifying game systems.
Most Bethesda RPGs are going for bredth instead of depth. They give you a giant world to explore and usually throw you into that world with complete freedom relatively quickly.
I generally agree that Skyrim (and Oblivion to be honest) aren’t particularly strong games when you look at pretty much any individual system, and the games don’t interest me much, but I totally get the appeal.
The vanilla Skyrim is good not great, but solid. It’s the mods that make this game truly exceptional. With mods, you can shape Skyrim into whatever you want, and that’s why, I think, so many people love it.
I never got the big deal with Skyrim
I’m guessing you never played it on PC.
But I did. Also the classic “The modders will save the game.”. Man, I’m getting tired of that.
I always thought that was a joke about modders adding in big bouncy titties and the game not having much else going for it…
also schlongs of skyrim mod sounds super important for living those exhibitionist fantasies
Agreed. Modding doesn’t “fix” Skyrim either. It adds surface-level content and tweaks but the fundamental bones of the game are still there and they are heavily flawed. One of the few exceptions I can think of are things like Skywind but that’s only because it removes Skyrim’s story entirely, overhauls many of its mechanics, and uses the world/lore/story of one of Bethesda’s better games.
And in the case of Starfield - it’s entirely beyond salvaging with mods. Mods will not be able to fix the biggest problems with that game because they are literally the very way the game was made. To fix them would require basically remaking the entire game from scratch.
By removing and simplifying systems they made the game more easier for random people who’ve never played a game or haven’t played since the NES. My english teacher that year was hijacking her son’s playstation just to play skyrim.
Even Oblivion felt too streamlined. Morrowind was too good.
I got super prepared for Oblivion to be as complex and difficult as Morrowind and was severely disappointed by it even at launch. Skyrim was slightly better than Oblivion in terms of mechanical complexity (dual wielding, how magic works, the forts, etc), but also even more streamlined in others (like how skills and leveling work).
I’ve played the absolute shit out of all 3 (as well as FO3, NV and 4) though. There is just some inexplicable draw to them. And it’s that very thing that Starfield lacks that had me rush the MQ and just stop playing once it was over.
Deep or not, I hated the levelling system of Oblivion with a passion. Needing to micromanage which skills I increase for each level so I can get a good attribute increase was such a micromanagement pain, especially when everything kept scaling up your level. Often I felt like I was getting weaker, not stronger, when I leveled.
I’d much prefer they replace the system with something different (like how it works in fallout 3) than what they did in Skyrim where they just carved out all the annoying bits and left barely anything behind though.
Oblivion’s leveling didn’t change from Morrowind, it also had that flaw that could really fuck you up if you didn’t optimize getting extra points in the minor skills before the major skills.
I enjoy that Skyrim made leveling up simply a matter of gaining X points across skills, but how they ditched the attributes and went for +10 on one of Health, Stamina or Magicka made it feel kinda dumb.
As long as Todd can milking TES5 there’s no TES6
they are literally working on tes6 as we speak 😂
Join the dark side – stop taking your pills and enjoy Elder Scrolls 6 and Titanfall 3 with the rest of us
Skyrim will always hold a special place in my heart, it’s almost like a simpler time.
Starfield damaged Bethesda for me though. To spend 25 years on it in total and for it to be as it released was very disappointing. I mean basics like, no city maps or land vehicles? Every base you come across having the same bodies in the same place with the same loot? I want to love it, they can do things I can’t even imagine (I can’t program Jack shit) but for that to be the end point of their decades of labour just doesn’t add up for me.
It’s the damn engine, TES6 will be in the same engine. The same engine based on the gamebryo engine designed in 1997.
Yeah, my current plan is to pass on TES6.
It’s almost like they suck at making games now.
I hate the way most of the ES fans talk and think about this. I see where the frustraition is coming from but for the most part all of the hate is baseless, you all act like you have seen even a pixel of it. Yes the last few games were not their best to say the least but i belive they had a reason for most of the fumbles. While sometimes it was just plain “we need more money” other times itwas a bit more complex with how starfield was a passion project which they made to test out the limits of their game engine. it was never supposed to be a ground braking game just a way to monotize their testing while giving the hungry fans something to play with while they wait. There is no solid proof or reason to balive that TESVI will be trash. It may not be as good as skyrim in some aspects but i belive it will at least surpass it in some other ones. The best thing to do is wait and see. Don’t make it harder for everyone to be excited. I may have missed some things in this post so if anyone wants to debate me feel free to reply!
-Cheers!
it was never supposed to be a ground braking game just a way to monotize their testing while giving the hungry fans something to play with while they wait.
Can’t re-write history just to cope, buddy
would you reather a buggy unplayable mess now or a fully flashed out game a year or two later
Right now we don’t get either so that’s a weird 2 options to pick
And considering Bethesda’s track record, we will get a buggy mess 2 years from now. I mean, just compare the list of shit the Unofficial Skyrim Patch fixes that Bethesda hasn’t addressed in 13 fucking years
TES6 isn’t real. It isn’t real. Do you see it? Is it in the room with us here?
