Are Bethesda resting on their laurels? (Picture: Bethesda)
A reader worries that Bethesda is being left behind by other role-playing developers and blames Todd Howard and others for being complacent.
The article about Bethesda shooting down every pitch Obsidian Entertainment came up with, for Fallout and The Elder Scrolls spin-offs, has kind of solidified an idea that’s been floating around in my head for a while.
I think Bethesda boss Todd Howard suffers from an envy of other games and developers, that has taken a stronger and stronger hold over the years. I’m not being flippant here. Bethesda were on top of the world with Skyrim but they’ve never reached those heights since.
When Fallout: New Vegas got the love it did we saw that Bethesda really didn’t like it and were insecure enough to deny Obsidian the chance to work with The Elder Scrolls, after what they did with Fallout.
I can imagine Todd Howard laughing up his sleeve at The Witcher 2 but then in a relatively short time CD Projekt Red release The Witcher 3 and it blows Skyrim clean out of the water.
The Witcher 3 did have the advantage of being released on more powerful hardware than Skyrim but that doesn’t change the fact that the writing and overarching story is better than Skyrim’s and it didn’t release with a shed load of quest and game-breaking bugs like Skyrim did.
The PlayStation 3 version of Skyrim was completely broken on release. Once the save file got to a certain size the game was unplayable. It didn’t work as it was supposed to for a long time after it was released on PlayStation 3.
That was last gen. This gen FromSoftware released Elden Ring, which blew both Skyrim and The Witcher 3 clean away. The story is more opaque, you have to piece a lot of it together yourself, but it was another game that released without a shed load of bugs and the gameplay knocks Skyrim – in fact everything Bethesda has ever released – clean out of the park.
I hypothesise this is a big part of the reason why we are not going to see another The Elden Scrolls until 2025/26. [2028 seems more likely at the moment – GC]
The way Starfield turned out sort of makes this argument for me. To me at least, it shows Bethesda have nothing left in their proverbial bag.
They no doubt see what they are now competing against but by the time The Elder Scrolls 6 finally gets released, what will FromSoftware and CD Projekt Red have come up with?
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I’ve said this before, but I think it’s worth saying again. Microsoft would never have been able to buy out Bethesda in 2012 when they were at the height of their powers.
The fact that they were able to buy them indicates the ZeniMax board, and maybe shareholders, didn’t have a lot of faith left in what Bethesda could turn out at that point in time – again Starfield supports this argument.
I’ve played it and it isn’t up to much. The promised updates for next year might change that, but that in itself makes me wonder if it was released before it was ready or if Bethesda just failed to read the room. Again.
By reader Mitchell
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A reader worries that Bethesda is being left behind by other role-playing developers and blames Todd Howard and others for being complacent.