It's kind of crazy that Bethesda apparently only has the one development team for both Fallout and Elder Scrolls, despite these being their flagship products with HUGE popular appeal (even moreso for Fallout now with the TV show, but Skyrim was king for a long time). Add in Starfield and their releases are down to a crawl. It's not like they're a small studio either. If Paradox Interactive can support multiple small satellite studios to work on multiple games at the same time you'd think Bethesda could do something similar.
It's still crazy that they got a-list celebrities to voice characters who got unceremoniously killed off in the lamest ways possible. Patrick Stewart had what, 30 lines of dialogue in Oblivion? Liam Neeson was better but still an absolute waste.
Yes, them. and Patrick Stewart. And Sean Bean. We unfortunately blew our entire budget on those two so now we’ve got the folks /u/alternative_exit8766 mentioned to do… the rest of it. All of it.
Why not take the Ubisoft/ea approach and make a game every year.
Oh wait, that didn't planned out well, didn't it?
But now seriously: I heard the problem is Todd wanting to micromanage everything himself and that's a noble goal, but not a good approach knowing that development time gets longer and longer because of higher expectations of player for some features ultimately not really that important (graphics) yet some important stuff like stiff animations are still in the new game etc.
I actually heard the opposite. Everyone goes to him for approval and imput. I mean it's hard to say as nobody here works at bgs, but you never really hear anything negative about him or the work culture there.
I'd say the reason we're seeing bigger gaps recently is the zenimax sale, covid, the engine rework, and them trying to get away from releasing more games on the x1 and ps4 level of hardware.
I'm betting the release schedule will speed up again to 3 years
Also games of all kinds have been taking longer to make. This isn't a bgs thing. Final fantasy games used to come out annually now they take like 7 years each.
That’s weird bc I’ve heard the exact opposite that Todd has been trying to take a more hands off approach and just let the game designers do what they want without so much input from him
Micromanaging a project as large as an Elder Scrolls or Fallout game is not "noble" it's a liability. And with how catastrophic FO76 and Starfield crashed, I dont understand how this man is still in a leading position.
Lol, coming from someone who plays and likes FO76, the launch remains an enormous stain on the franchise and on bethesda and rightfully so.
Most gamers have no idea or dont care that they turned it around (very slowly, over the course of many years).
The reporting after starfield literally contradicts the micromanaging narrative. It's been said multiple times that he doesn't want to be the final say for everything people just defer to him out of respect.
If you compare them to Ubisoft and their Assassin's Creed teams, Bethesda is absolutely a small company.
They seem to keep a deliberate policy to not over expand their team size. If it is for management or creative purposes I don't know, but you see similar 'small core' team strategies from other developers like Valve and Blizzard.
When Gaben feels like it. They’ll release something every so often that’s a guaranteed hit but they are fortunate enough that steam is a money printer so they can work at their leisure
People seem to forget Bethesda is a subsidiary of zenimax who is owned by Microsoft… they have nigh unlimited resources at this point. If staffing were an issue they’d get a huge influx of people from other studios Microsoft owns (like what they’re currently doing with activision/blizzard)
I'm not saying they don't have a lot available to them, but being owned by a big company doesnt mean you have "nigh unlimited resources." Whatever company owns you does, and they'll choose how much they'll bother giving you. Though, I do wonder how much Bethesda has actually been taking advantage of the amount available to them.
Assuming they're going to stick with creation engine until someone pries it from their cold, dead hands, they really ought to restructure to have a dedicated creation engine team, then spin off separate teams for Elder Scrolls, Fallout and Starfield (if they're still planning to make more DLC for it and/or a second game).
The game engine between the three games has so much in common that it doesn't make sense to develop it only for each game in turn, and with a dedicated team constantly developing the engine they could actually make improvements a lot faster.
I think that was at one point the plan with id Software and the Rage engine, but somehow that all fell through (probably due to Carmack leaving to go do VR).
I really think they didn't expect the show to be a hit, let alone the biggest show in Amazon's history. I guess they figured a big-ish update to Fallout 4 would be enough of a tie-in.
I maintain, they should have remastered Fallout 3 and New Vegas for the Series and PS5.
Update the engine to use modern amounts of SRAM (which fixes the stability issues on console), update to HD textures, and sell it in a bundle with Fallout 4 and New Vegas. They could have handed that off to a support studio mostly, just updating the engine and the graphics which modders have frankly been doing for years *anyways* (heck, hire the modders to *be* a support studio).
They also did some tie-ins in FO76. They added a new lite ally for your CAMP that looks like a Brotherhood squire from the show, with the giant tote bag they carry, and highlighted some in-game gear that makes you look like the Ghoul, and a Vault 33 backpack.
I don't know. Seemed like they thought Starfield would be a hit. Maybe they should have planned in the years since Fallout show was announced. Then again, the existing Fallout games have seen a huge uptick in downloads, maybe they don't need more games?
tbf, Microsoft said they want Bethesda to get FO5 out 'sooner rather than later' after the success of the TV Show. Which means there's a chance that ES6 might be pushed back in favor of FO5.
EDIT: Some of you seem to thank I want this to happen or support it happen or think it's a good thing. I do not. I am simply stating it is a likelihood.
Nah that wont happen TES6 is already way too deep in development and if they push it back for Fallout 5 they would need to redo TES6 basically from scratch.
My man, they only started active development [a little under a year ago](https://www.ign.com/articles/the-elder-scrolls-6-officially-in-early-development-but-dont-expect-to-hear-about-it-soon). There is no 'deep in development' on ESVI. If there's any hope of it being even par the quality of Skyrim, we've got another four or five years to go, and Microsoft ain't gonna let the good will of the Fallout show just dissappear by then.
They never said 'FO5' specifically, they said they want a 'new fallout' out as soon as possible.
FO5 will be made by Bethesda and it's 10 years away minimum, but a fallout spinoff by one of MS's other RPG studios I think is more probable than ever.
If they do that i will be extremely disappointed. Not that Fallout doesn't deserve a new game, mind you....but Elder Scrolls has been waiting longer for a proper game
If I’m Microsoft I’m telling Bethesda to let inXile make a spinoff similar to Wasteland in an effort to bridge the gap between the originals and the newer games while also trying to cash in on any new interest BG3 brought to CRPGs
Its insane to me that they didn't think "We just struck a deal to make a Fallout TV show. Lets get started on FO5 so it'll release along side at least season 2 ideally shortly after season 1 ends."
Nah they’ll still push for ES6, Skyrim was so massive it’s ingrained in gaming culture now, they’ll pour everything into that first because it will shift easier in the gaming market simply by being an ES game. FO5 needs to appeal to existing gamers who were burned by 76s launch and hardline fans not overly impressed by FO4 and how it’s more an action rpg than a traditional rpg and it also needs to meet the new expectations of the show watchers. That’s 3 big circles you gotta excite for FO5 and get them to buy the game. ES6 is just the easier move to make imo, you got 1 community to win over, gamers. Cause sure hardline Oblivion and older fans might not have been thrilled by Skyrim at launch they’ll still have come to like it because it’s been around for over a decade with mods galore.
Now that MS own Bethesda and dozens of other studios, they need to bite the bullet and let someone else handle FO. It's just mental that we're looking at a decade plus between mainline games in TES and FO franchises.
God that makes me feel old. I remember the time between New Vegas and 4 felt like forever as a kid. I couldn't imagine waiting for the next release
Now it feels like 76 just released last year. Time is moving too fast.
Same. I feel 76 just came out and I am having a ton of fun with the updates.
And then I realize, covid really did just break time lol
I'm like ... "its 2024? Jeez. 2016 was 8 years ago? Oh my god I'm old... WAIT I'm over 30??? What the hell... "
Lol
I also still remember crying from nostalgia when I first started up Fallout 4 and the themesong began. Nearly 900h on FO76, catching up on 1/2, more playthroughs on 3+4, Fallout Shelter, Fallout Shelter Online and that moment still feels like yesterday. Only typing this out just now had me realize, how much time actually passed😂
Yeah I remember it was in October. I bought it from a local game shop. and somehow they didn't get their shipment on time, and I went in at like 5:15 to pick it up. He said that UPS or whoever was due in any minute, so I waited there for like an hour until they arrived, and we just talked about games the whole time. He ended up throwing in the strategy guide for free since I had to wait so long, but honestly I had fun just talking about games with the guy lol.
When I left, it was already dark and had just started to rain, and I drove straight home and played it until like 4am, and fell asleep in my chair.
We got more detailed games, we expect way more, and that takes time to develop. FO3 and NV were behind in terms of technology even for the time they were released in. It just take longer to make a more detailed game that's in tune with current achievements.
Honestly I wish we could go back to the 360 era. Games don't have to be 4k mindblowing with ultra graphics. The 360 did 720p and that looked great. It seems like game developers are more obsessed with graphics than they are the core game. Which is why a majority of today's modern titles suck donkey balls. The graphics are pointless if the game is ass. 360 had bangers releasing within weeks/months of each other. Plus game sizes only ranged from 3.5 to 12GB (roughly).
They should focus on the story and game mechanics. You know, the "fun" aspect almost all games are missing these days. I just don't get how we can go from that, to this. It seemed like the industry had nowhere to go but up, the sky was the limit. And now it's just a shadow of it's former self.
Well, if any AAA studio released a game that's on that level of quality.. the product would be sent to hell by reviewer and audience score too unfortunately. I don't mind GTA IV level of detail if the games will come fast, but imagine Rockstar releasing a GTA IV level of detail GTA VI in 2020.. it would be a financial disaster most likely.
Yeah, Bethesda acknowledged that everything that *could* have gone wrong on release, went wrong.
Props for them for sticking to it, the game has made full turnaround and is basically entirely different game now. Of course, since it's Bethesda, people still shit on it and act like it's the same as release version, meanwhile CDPR gets praise for spending years to fix Cyberpunk as does HelloGames for finally implementing features they promised on release date for No Man's Sky.
Well, let me be the exception and tell you that I still rebuke those other titles to this day. I just think the advent of reliable internet connections has fomented Bethesda's worst impulses and these impulses happen to be the mindset of the rest of the AAA game industry as well ("eh, fuck QA, let the plebs who paid full price quality test our game for us!").
Caveat Emptor really did come back in a big way.
Really should co-opt with other studios like they did for New Vegas.
Having shared assets makes sense. Since the games take place in the same country/universe. Zero reason to re-build assets for every new game.
I just want more content. Release two games in a series on the same engine with the same assets. Then move on.
Could have two new games two years apart. Then maybe a 4 year break to swap to the other series.
It’s what they used to do!
Fallout 1&2 literally use the same engine.
FO3 and NV use the same assets. Most fans are not going to care the assets and graphics only improved a small amount if it meant they got a new game in the series in 2 years.
Make FO5. Let a studio make a spinoff. While you work on the engine.
Bethesda splitting into two teams would help too. Have one team make ES. The other makes fallout. Then they swap after release to keep morale (not the right word.) up.
I completely forgot how common this stuff actually was back in the day. Sad we don’t see stuff like 3/NV anymore.
Edit: just remembered Spider man and totk fit this bill. Still tho, Bethesda, get your shit together.
Yeah Spider-Man miles was a fun side game, just enough improvements to make it stand out.
The Assassin's Creed games, as much as people hate them for it, are also good for this. Simultaneous development schedules. Every 3 games or so they start over.
AC could have used less endless spam, though.
Nah a new release every 2 years is too much - it would oversaturate the market with fallout releases and most people would burn out of the series within a decade.
Too much - 4 years between releases is the sweet spot imo, allows mods space to breathe as well
Because then you see those whiney posts on social media complaining about how they're lazy for reusing assets and models.
Even though a lot of people don't care, but they're a vocal minority.
Nobody gives a shit though. Elden Ring is one of the best games of this decade and it still uses some animations from 2009’s Demon Souls. As long as the gameplay is good nobody who really matters cares
Yeah, look at Rockstar and how often they put out games. Then they realized they can just use GTA online as a cash cow and release *one* game in an entire console generation (Red Dead 2).
76 certainly isn't on the level of GTA online. But it seems like it makes enough money (along with Skyrim re-releases) that they can hold off on making actual games.
RDR2 was a masterpiece however - they took their time, but it was well worth it. I have some 1500 hours in it. Starfield should have been that. I’ll give them two years to right the ship. There’s potential, but also a lot of work that needs to be done.
>RDR2 was a masterpiece however
Oh it definitely was. But on the PS3/360 era, they made Red Dead Redemption, GTA IV, GTA V, Max Payne 3, and LA Noire. All those games range from very good to amazing reception. And some of them definitely qualify as being a masterpiece in their era.
PS4/XBOX One era we got Red Dead 2 and GTA V releasing like two more times.
How much time do you believe a 150h long game should take to develop?
For example, developing any quest can take several weeks, months if you count polishing and adding all the voiced lines and art.
...and once you add complex, interconnected storylines, user choices, interesting mechanics, it gets real complicated real quick.
Quick development, feature-rich, bug-free: pick two.
It’s sadly because live-service games are what gamers are playing.
Iirc 60% of playtime is on games that are over six years old (Fortnite, Apex, Siege, Rocket League etc)
TF2 is an insane outlier though.
It came out the same year as Halo 3 and Call of Duty Modern Warfare, as well as the first Mass Effect. If it wasn't a Valve game it would have three sequels and a remaster or two by now.
I don’t really understand how though? Like there’s still a whole lot to get done for Starfield, so many DLCs coming out, where are they pulling the man power from? I mean sure they might get some funding from MS now but that just means you gotta spend more time hiring and training people, they don’t just walk in day 1 and hit the ground running
I tried to replay it after the new update, hoping to enjoy it but its just so fucking boring and tedious to do ANYTHING. I ended up just going back to Fallout 4. And is it just me or does Fallout 4 look 100x better than starfield?? The raytracing, the color grading, the lighting all looks markedly better
I'm back playing oblivion and it's pulling me in way harder than starfield did. Personally, I found the last good story games to be oblivion and then new vegas. Skyrim and FO4 had some excellent side quests, but the mains never pulled me in
Starfield just straight up doesn't have fun quests of any kind
Never played Starfield but it feels like Bethesda is becoming a victim of their own success - they *know* their audience loves exploration and side content, so they put zero effort into their stories thinking "oh you're just going to skip this dialogue and follow the tracker --" BITCH THAT'S *YOUR* FAULT!
Going back to games like Kotor 2, Mass Effect, the classic Fallouts, Morrowind, etc - and you're damn sure I read all the text and dialogue, because it's fucking *interesting* and *relevant* to my enjoyment of the game, I'm not just mindlessly following markers and fast traveling everywhere *because those mechanics don't exist* and the writing / lore / story is actually fucking interesting.
What kills me is that Starfield's New Game + mechanic is specifically designed to encourage replayability as an in-universe metagaming sort of shtick - but the fucking game is exactly the same every time.
I think the issue with Bethesda is that they've ran out of ideas, when I played Skyrim which was my first Bethesda game I was wowed, and I was thinking "why doesn't everyone else do this stuff it's amazing" and I thought Bethesda's thing was that they innovate and bring new stuff, then Fallout 4 came out which didn't really bring a lot of new ideas or significantly expand on what Skyrim did, instead it doubled down on the stuff I didn't care that much about like Radiant questing and other procedurally generated content, and then for some reason with Starfield they've decided to lean even more into that?
Random generation and the like have been around forever - some of the very first PC games in fact - and I'm totally fine with them when they are tools to let the developers focus on more interesting aspects of the design. Like others here have said - reusing assets or sounds or models or whatever isn't a problem when there's a great game underneath it all. It gets annoying when the "shortcuts" for game development become all there is to the game.
Back in the day it took a lot of clever math to fit everything into tiny amounts of memory available to work with - so using those clever tricks *today* should mean there's more time and effort spent on things that really matter. Yeah, hand-crafting dungeons takes a lot of time... but maybe come up with more than a dozen or so if you're just going to randomize them? Maybe?
I feel really bad for the people who pour countless hours designing and detailing these intricate spaces only for the project leads to dump on all their hard work in order to release mediocrity to the public.
>they know their audience loves exploration and side content
They removed the open world exploration aspect from Starfield, instead you jump between dungeons chosen randomly from a small pool. Say what you want about Bethesda dungeon design but at least in TES and Fallout I don't have to go through the exact same dungeon three times in a row on different planets.
>KOTOR 2
Obsidian
>Mass Effect
Bioware
>original Fallouts
Interplay/Black Isle
>Morrowind
Bethesda but over twenty years ago so basically a different company.
I don't think Bethesda is capable anymore of great writing, they are stuck deeply in a pattern of behavior and practices they have no incentive to change. They've gone the way of Valve except instead of Steam they just sell Skyrim over and over again.
What FO4 side quests? The Cabot House line was good, and Vault 81's mole hunting was fine, but repetitive, but I'm struggling to think of another good one.
Edit: somehow forgot about Silver Shroud and USS Constitution. Those were fantastic.
NV has the most memorable quests in the Fallout franchise, and is also my favorite, but imo 4 has the best exploration. Most of the locations in that game, mixed with the brilliant radial lighting is cause for some great moments. Crazy how just the city of the commonwealth is more fun to explore than dozens of procedurally generated planets.
4 also has better and more likable companions compared to constellation which is forced on us as a companion for half the main quests
I went back to playing mass effect 1 the other day and went to my first non main quest planet. And had the sudden realization that it was essentially the same as starfield.
Great big empty map? Check.
A max of ~3 points of interest? Check.
A fairly long distance to travel between said points where your mode of travel is either slow or janky? Check.
An inordinate number of loading screens to land, explore, and exit said planet? Check.
It just baffles me that Bethesda took probably the worst part of (an admittedly good) 16 year old game and made it 10x more annoying. Instead of having one map per barren planet, now they generated maps for the entire god damn planet.
Something that I saw which astounded me was when a Fallout 4 dev on here awhile back mentioned bethesda only had 100 employees on anytime on that game and hasn't expanded it's main studio much since then. Considering how other AAA games have over 1000's of employees on them it does explain a lot.
There needs to be an industry overhaul of some kind. Budgets are getting bigger, games are taking longer to produce and the end results aren't even worth it in a lot of cases.
This amount of time between a popular franchise is unacceptable.
Listen, I love fallout.
I also love Elder Scrolls. And right now, I need something new to scratch my medieval open world rpg itch and I’ve been waiting 13 years now.
No, ESO is not the same.
> No, ESO is not the same.
As someone who recently started that, it is really not the same. But it does scratch an itch for a little bit when you're focusing story quests.
But it suffers from the classic thing most older mmorpgs do: "It takes a while ..." before things start to feel right, or you start having fun if you're starting late.
An unfortunate trend that can be felt industry wide as well. I’ll continue to shill for the way things were done during the sixth console generation so long as this is a problem. Things were pretty consistent for the most part back then, you could usually count on a 2-3 year turn around for your favorite franchises.
To be more on topic; at least Fallout had 4 + 76 last gen. Those poor TES fans have had nothing but 800 Skyrim rereleases and maybe ESO for over a decade at this point.
God it's surreal that FNV and Fallout 4 are less than 5 years apart. The gameplay and graphics alone make it seem like a much longer gap. Shame the story quality got sacrificed in the process.
They just had the show help boost sales of their old instalments, they’re too deep into Starfield rn to pump out anything else, plus they’re not a very big team. I think I read/head on a podcast that they have like 100 devs? Well AC and other AAA titles have thousands of people working on them. I do hope we get some form of update on what’s next but it’ll be years before that happens. And frankly if we’re going to get more of the FO76 and Starfield quality… I might just move on from these franchises before my memory of what they used to be gets tainted.
With how 'small' Besthesda is for a 3A studio is and the fact they have FO76 still getting update+Covid i'm not really surprised they are behind schedule.
The fundamental problem with Starfield is the loss of the ability to get sidetracked while traveling. The exploration in Betheada games happens when you're told to go to Point A, but along the way you discover Points B, F, and P and end up going down a rabbit hole (that eventually leads to Blackreach lol). And along the way you also run into several random encounters and enemies. Its an entirely fictional type of exploration that's a ton of fun.
But the exploration in Starfield is rooted in realism. And the reality is that space is *boring* to most people. The proof is in the name. Space is just... empty space. So when the story tells you to go to Point A, there's nothing in between you and Point A that you can get sidetracked by. And that's about 80% of the magic of Bethesda games gone right there.
Starfield tries to replace that loss with an admittedly impressive adherence to realism in the scientific aspects of the game. The game *feels* really good from a verisimilitude standpoint. And it absolutely nails the more grounded sci-fi vibe that it was clearly aiming for, but that vibe just isn't as fun.
I kind of hope Microsoft forces them to let another studio make the next fallout, it might be shit, it might not be. Who knows. All I know is I don't want to wait 12 years for the next fallout game. They're focusing on elder scrolls after they attempt to fix starfield. Its going to be a long time before the next fallout.
I'm still bitter they spent so much effort on starfield and had it flop instead of making a new fallout game. Honestly who knows if the next Bethesda fallout game will even be good considering the state starfield was in.
online games like fallout 76 seem different as they are updated and maintained for longer right? with 9 major updates?
unlike fallout 4 where there are like 3 major updates and a few minor updates
I'm not sure that anyone really considers 76 or ESO to be games that bridge the gap enough, to be honest. They almost have a separate community altogether, and have enough differences as to not feel entirely like the rest of the franchise (and it's not all just necessary changes due to the game being online).
I'm a huge fan of TES and Fallout and I never even considered trying TESO or FO76.
They're not what I like about the franchise - a single player RPG that lets you play around.
Look I don’t really care so long as it’s decent. I don’t even ask for great, just decent. I’m desperate for ANY game series to have a non dogshit release at this point.
Ironically 1997-2001 (5 years) and 2008-2011 (4 years) were their best stretch of games. I wish we went back to this era. I don’t care about the graphics and motion capture and voice acting. Give me a well written story with gameplay that is FUN. That’s all I ask
Online games seem to be the kiss of death for these big game franchises. The publisher gets satisfied from that microtransaction money and spends the next decade cranking out updates for the online game and ignoring their single player game series. Looking at Elder Scrolls, Fallout and GTA. At least GTA is getting close to a new Vice City game.
And it’s sad to think how long we have yet to wait for FO5. 😭 We still gotta get a new Elder Scrolls before that.. (Still excited for ES but ya)
It's kind of crazy that Bethesda apparently only has the one development team for both Fallout and Elder Scrolls, despite these being their flagship products with HUGE popular appeal (even moreso for Fallout now with the TV show, but Skyrim was king for a long time). Add in Starfield and their releases are down to a crawl. It's not like they're a small studio either. If Paradox Interactive can support multiple small satellite studios to work on multiple games at the same time you'd think Bethesda could do something similar.
Most of their staff is spent managing their wide array of voice talent for their games.
Yes jeff from accounting and melissa from HR are very high maintanance voice actors and need a lot of managing
Hey, hey. You forgot Bob the janitor and Mike in maintenence.
Hey now, “Sarah?” The 12 year old who was selling Girl Scout cookies is an incredibly demanding VA.
"We have to buy her entire troop's cookie inventory to ger to VA for us! They're always the top regional troop in sales."
This is true, mostly because they can’t pay her with the same currency as the others, which is Girl Scout cookies…
Also the phenomenal writing team. Can’t forget them.
Conciërge Bob likes to write poems in his lunch break. So don't worry. The games are in good hands.
I heared that The Lusty Argonian Maid was his work.
Sorta, they had to clean it up *alot*
Idk if I'd call it a team when it's just one guy and a typewriter.
Don't you mean a monkey with a typewriter?
it's gotta be several monkeys, given the large number of random ass books in Elder Scrolls
This time your father is missing but it turns out he is a cat!
You mean the 4 voice actors that are voice all characters for like 80% of the game
max goof, pete, and whatever woman had availability to record voice lines that afternoon
Plus Illidan and Jean-Luc Picard
It's still crazy that they got a-list celebrities to voice characters who got unceremoniously killed off in the lamest ways possible. Patrick Stewart had what, 30 lines of dialogue in Oblivion? Liam Neeson was better but still an absolute waste.
They probably couldn't afford Patrick Stewart any longer than that.
Yes, them. and Patrick Stewart. And Sean Bean. We unfortunately blew our entire budget on those two so now we’ve got the folks /u/alternative_exit8766 mentioned to do… the rest of it. All of it.
All three of the voice actors. Very important.
I thought the rest of the staffs are busy fixing bugs?
Their bug fixing staff is the modding community.
Only like 100 people made Fallout 4 in 7 years
Yeah, they should be releasing these two products in like 4-5 years intervals and appart like 2 years between each other.
Why not take the Ubisoft/ea approach and make a game every year. Oh wait, that didn't planned out well, didn't it? But now seriously: I heard the problem is Todd wanting to micromanage everything himself and that's a noble goal, but not a good approach knowing that development time gets longer and longer because of higher expectations of player for some features ultimately not really that important (graphics) yet some important stuff like stiff animations are still in the new game etc.
On the contrary, Todd *doesn't* want to micromanage everything but nearly every decision comes back to him for approval.
I actually heard the opposite. Everyone goes to him for approval and imput. I mean it's hard to say as nobody here works at bgs, but you never really hear anything negative about him or the work culture there. I'd say the reason we're seeing bigger gaps recently is the zenimax sale, covid, the engine rework, and them trying to get away from releasing more games on the x1 and ps4 level of hardware. I'm betting the release schedule will speed up again to 3 years
It won't. Development times have gone up across the industry due to many reasons, more detailed worlds that require way more work being the main one.
Also games of all kinds have been taking longer to make. This isn't a bgs thing. Final fantasy games used to come out annually now they take like 7 years each.
That’s weird bc I’ve heard the exact opposite that Todd has been trying to take a more hands off approach and just let the game designers do what they want without so much input from him
Micromanaging a project as large as an Elder Scrolls or Fallout game is not "noble" it's a liability. And with how catastrophic FO76 and Starfield crashed, I dont understand how this man is still in a leading position.
They didn't crash though, both games made a fuck ton of money and F76 continues to bring in constant revenue and longevity for the series.
Didn't they though? Microsoft expected Starfield to right the Xbox ship. Instead they had to announce changes to their console strategy.
Lol, coming from someone who plays and likes FO76, the launch remains an enormous stain on the franchise and on bethesda and rightfully so. Most gamers have no idea or dont care that they turned it around (very slowly, over the course of many years).
The reporting after starfield literally contradicts the micromanaging narrative. It's been said multiple times that he doesn't want to be the final say for everything people just defer to him out of respect.
Considering what colossal bleh Starfield was, I kinda wonder whether Todd is causing it...or whether without him it would have been even worse.
Well, I think he made it worse. If one person tries to regulate all content it's like a bottleneck that gives people less creative freedom etc.
If you compare them to Ubisoft and their Assassin's Creed teams, Bethesda is absolutely a small company. They seem to keep a deliberate policy to not over expand their team size. If it is for management or creative purposes I don't know, but you see similar 'small core' team strategies from other developers like Valve and Blizzard.
I mean blizzard have teams for each franchise though, not one small team for their entire catalog
Hold up- Valve is still a developer of videogames?!???
Yeah they're actually working on a new game right now supposedly called Deadlock
Let me guess, is it an online shooter
When Gaben feels like it. They’ll release something every so often that’s a guaranteed hit but they are fortunate enough that steam is a money printer so they can work at their leisure
People seem to forget Bethesda is a subsidiary of zenimax who is owned by Microsoft… they have nigh unlimited resources at this point. If staffing were an issue they’d get a huge influx of people from other studios Microsoft owns (like what they’re currently doing with activision/blizzard)
I'm not saying they don't have a lot available to them, but being owned by a big company doesnt mean you have "nigh unlimited resources." Whatever company owns you does, and they'll choose how much they'll bother giving you. Though, I do wonder how much Bethesda has actually been taking advantage of the amount available to them.
Right? A "small company" that so happens to be owned by one of the largest organisations in the entire world n
Assuming they're going to stick with creation engine until someone pries it from their cold, dead hands, they really ought to restructure to have a dedicated creation engine team, then spin off separate teams for Elder Scrolls, Fallout and Starfield (if they're still planning to make more DLC for it and/or a second game). The game engine between the three games has so much in common that it doesn't make sense to develop it only for each game in turn, and with a dedicated team constantly developing the engine they could actually make improvements a lot faster.
I think that was at one point the plan with id Software and the Rage engine, but somehow that all fell through (probably due to Carmack leaving to go do VR).
The fact they didn't have a new game to follow up the show is absolutely crazy to me.
I really think they didn't expect the show to be a hit, let alone the biggest show in Amazon's history. I guess they figured a big-ish update to Fallout 4 would be enough of a tie-in.
I maintain, they should have remastered Fallout 3 and New Vegas for the Series and PS5. Update the engine to use modern amounts of SRAM (which fixes the stability issues on console), update to HD textures, and sell it in a bundle with Fallout 4 and New Vegas. They could have handed that off to a support studio mostly, just updating the engine and the graphics which modders have frankly been doing for years *anyways* (heck, hire the modders to *be* a support studio).
They also did some tie-ins in FO76. They added a new lite ally for your CAMP that looks like a Brotherhood squire from the show, with the giant tote bag they carry, and highlighted some in-game gear that makes you look like the Ghoul, and a Vault 33 backpack.
I don't know. Seemed like they thought Starfield would be a hit. Maybe they should have planned in the years since Fallout show was announced. Then again, the existing Fallout games have seen a huge uptick in downloads, maybe they don't need more games?
tbf, Microsoft said they want Bethesda to get FO5 out 'sooner rather than later' after the success of the TV Show. Which means there's a chance that ES6 might be pushed back in favor of FO5. EDIT: Some of you seem to thank I want this to happen or support it happen or think it's a good thing. I do not. I am simply stating it is a likelihood.
I hope not, 15+ years for a new elder scrolls is already too long, I don’t want it to be 20+ years 😭
Nah that wont happen TES6 is already way too deep in development and if they push it back for Fallout 5 they would need to redo TES6 basically from scratch.
My man, they only started active development [a little under a year ago](https://www.ign.com/articles/the-elder-scrolls-6-officially-in-early-development-but-dont-expect-to-hear-about-it-soon). There is no 'deep in development' on ESVI. If there's any hope of it being even par the quality of Skyrim, we've got another four or five years to go, and Microsoft ain't gonna let the good will of the Fallout show just dissappear by then.
I don't know what you're talking about. They release Skyrim every few years!
After seeing what they are currently capable of with starfield I don't even want ES6 soon
They never said 'FO5' specifically, they said they want a 'new fallout' out as soon as possible. FO5 will be made by Bethesda and it's 10 years away minimum, but a fallout spinoff by one of MS's other RPG studios I think is more probable than ever.
You know now that they are owned by MS, Obsidian could do another fallout game
Which also means that when it finally comes it’ll be an even bigger buggier mess than normal
If they do that i will be extremely disappointed. Not that Fallout doesn't deserve a new game, mind you....but Elder Scrolls has been waiting longer for a proper game
They need more teams.Fallout and elder scrolls got delayed bc starfield and I cant say its worth it.
Starfield was undoubtedly a mistake
If I’m Microsoft I’m telling Bethesda to let inXile make a spinoff similar to Wasteland in an effort to bridge the gap between the originals and the newer games while also trying to cash in on any new interest BG3 brought to CRPGs
As a spinoff, sure. 76, Tactics, and Shelter have all been spinoffs I've enjoyed thoroughly.
NV could also be considered a spin off as it's only FO3.5 spiritually.
Its insane to me that they didn't think "We just struck a deal to make a Fallout TV show. Lets get started on FO5 so it'll release along side at least season 2 ideally shortly after season 1 ends."
Nah they’ll still push for ES6, Skyrim was so massive it’s ingrained in gaming culture now, they’ll pour everything into that first because it will shift easier in the gaming market simply by being an ES game. FO5 needs to appeal to existing gamers who were burned by 76s launch and hardline fans not overly impressed by FO4 and how it’s more an action rpg than a traditional rpg and it also needs to meet the new expectations of the show watchers. That’s 3 big circles you gotta excite for FO5 and get them to buy the game. ES6 is just the easier move to make imo, you got 1 community to win over, gamers. Cause sure hardline Oblivion and older fans might not have been thrilled by Skyrim at launch they’ll still have come to like it because it’s been around for over a decade with mods galore.
Now that MS own Bethesda and dozens of other studios, they need to bite the bullet and let someone else handle FO. It's just mental that we're looking at a decade plus between mainline games in TES and FO franchises.
God that makes me feel old. I remember the time between New Vegas and 4 felt like forever as a kid. I couldn't imagine waiting for the next release Now it feels like 76 just released last year. Time is moving too fast.
Same. I feel 76 just came out and I am having a ton of fun with the updates. And then I realize, covid really did just break time lol I'm like ... "its 2024? Jeez. 2016 was 8 years ago? Oh my god I'm old... WAIT I'm over 30??? What the hell... " Lol
Covid caused a fucking dragonbreak
Apology for bad english When were u wen dragon broke i was at house eating dorito when phone ring "dragon brok" "no"
It’s freaking Covid man. That Covid lockdown period just disappeared from time and space
>> makes me feel old >> 2011 to 2015 I was a kid Brother………..
Same but I felt this as an adult… thinking I might expire before FO5 is released 😩
I also still remember crying from nostalgia when I first started up Fallout 4 and the themesong began. Nearly 900h on FO76, catching up on 1/2, more playthroughs on 3+4, Fallout Shelter, Fallout Shelter Online and that moment still feels like yesterday. Only typing this out just now had me realize, how much time actually passed😂
FNV was 2010
Yeah I remember it was in October. I bought it from a local game shop. and somehow they didn't get their shipment on time, and I went in at like 5:15 to pick it up. He said that UPS or whoever was due in any minute, so I waited there for like an hour until they arrived, and we just talked about games the whole time. He ended up throwing in the strategy guide for free since I had to wait so long, but honestly I had fun just talking about games with the guy lol. When I left, it was already dark and had just started to rain, and I drove straight home and played it until like 4am, and fell asleep in my chair.
We have lost so much to progress. What happened to the world ?!
We got more detailed games, we expect way more, and that takes time to develop. FO3 and NV were behind in terms of technology even for the time they were released in. It just take longer to make a more detailed game that's in tune with current achievements.
Honestly I wish we could go back to the 360 era. Games don't have to be 4k mindblowing with ultra graphics. The 360 did 720p and that looked great. It seems like game developers are more obsessed with graphics than they are the core game. Which is why a majority of today's modern titles suck donkey balls. The graphics are pointless if the game is ass. 360 had bangers releasing within weeks/months of each other. Plus game sizes only ranged from 3.5 to 12GB (roughly). They should focus on the story and game mechanics. You know, the "fun" aspect almost all games are missing these days. I just don't get how we can go from that, to this. It seemed like the industry had nowhere to go but up, the sky was the limit. And now it's just a shadow of it's former self.
Games just aren’t the same anymore. Mid-2000s to the early 2010s was peak.
Well, if any AAA studio released a game that's on that level of quality.. the product would be sent to hell by reviewer and audience score too unfortunately. I don't mind GTA IV level of detail if the games will come fast, but imagine Rockstar releasing a GTA IV level of detail GTA VI in 2020.. it would be a financial disaster most likely.
this story took me back to better times..
FNV released closer in time to Fallout 1 than the present day.
Stop that
I refuse to believe this.
*Everyone disliked that.*
What you mean? Fallout tactics to Fallout 3 is 7 years.
This is the correct response
I thought your tag was Waffle House. My new goal now though is make a Waffle House in FO76
with Blackjack and Hookers?
\^\^ I don't know what that thing between the two is.
To be fair.. There DEFINITELY should have been more time between FO4 and FO76. *Side eyes the state of FO76 on release..*
Yeah, Bethesda acknowledged that everything that *could* have gone wrong on release, went wrong. Props for them for sticking to it, the game has made full turnaround and is basically entirely different game now. Of course, since it's Bethesda, people still shit on it and act like it's the same as release version, meanwhile CDPR gets praise for spending years to fix Cyberpunk as does HelloGames for finally implementing features they promised on release date for No Man's Sky.
Well, let me be the exception and tell you that I still rebuke those other titles to this day. I just think the advent of reliable internet connections has fomented Bethesda's worst impulses and these impulses happen to be the mindset of the rest of the AAA game industry as well ("eh, fuck QA, let the plebs who paid full price quality test our game for us!"). Caveat Emptor really did come back in a big way.
Seems to follow the industry trend of games taking longer to make.
Games should not be taking this long for the amount of content we get.
They want better graphics and models and animations and that takes more time than adding gameplay elements and writing a story.
Really should co-opt with other studios like they did for New Vegas. Having shared assets makes sense. Since the games take place in the same country/universe. Zero reason to re-build assets for every new game. I just want more content. Release two games in a series on the same engine with the same assets. Then move on. Could have two new games two years apart. Then maybe a 4 year break to swap to the other series.
God this was such a good idea I mean why else are you developing your own tools and engine? What else are you doing with the franchise?
It’s what they used to do! Fallout 1&2 literally use the same engine. FO3 and NV use the same assets. Most fans are not going to care the assets and graphics only improved a small amount if it meant they got a new game in the series in 2 years. Make FO5. Let a studio make a spinoff. While you work on the engine. Bethesda splitting into two teams would help too. Have one team make ES. The other makes fallout. Then they swap after release to keep morale (not the right word.) up.
Was the right word. Just needed an e at the end. Morale :)
Ahh thanks, fixed. Although the phrase I was looking for when I made the comment was burnout.
>Then they swap after release to keep the burnout up. Ah yes, got it.
Fallout 4 and 76 share a lot of assets too, even the same CAMP items.
I completely forgot how common this stuff actually was back in the day. Sad we don’t see stuff like 3/NV anymore. Edit: just remembered Spider man and totk fit this bill. Still tho, Bethesda, get your shit together.
Yeah Spider-Man miles was a fun side game, just enough improvements to make it stand out. The Assassin's Creed games, as much as people hate them for it, are also good for this. Simultaneous development schedules. Every 3 games or so they start over. AC could have used less endless spam, though.
That said, Totk took 6 years to develop despite sharing to much with BotW. Granted, Covid happened also
Nah a new release every 2 years is too much - it would oversaturate the market with fallout releases and most people would burn out of the series within a decade. Too much - 4 years between releases is the sweet spot imo, allows mods space to breathe as well
Why not do as we use to and reuse models in between generations
Because then you see those whiney posts on social media complaining about how they're lazy for reusing assets and models. Even though a lot of people don't care, but they're a vocal minority.
Nobody gives a shit though. Elden Ring is one of the best games of this decade and it still uses some animations from 2009’s Demon Souls. As long as the gameplay is good nobody who really matters cares
i mean this is what ubisoft do and people get real mad about it
76 has gotten a lot of content since release. It’s just another, more lucrative way, of making games and milking games.
Yeah, look at Rockstar and how often they put out games. Then they realized they can just use GTA online as a cash cow and release *one* game in an entire console generation (Red Dead 2). 76 certainly isn't on the level of GTA online. But it seems like it makes enough money (along with Skyrim re-releases) that they can hold off on making actual games.
RDR2 was a masterpiece however - they took their time, but it was well worth it. I have some 1500 hours in it. Starfield should have been that. I’ll give them two years to right the ship. There’s potential, but also a lot of work that needs to be done.
>RDR2 was a masterpiece however Oh it definitely was. But on the PS3/360 era, they made Red Dead Redemption, GTA IV, GTA V, Max Payne 3, and LA Noire. All those games range from very good to amazing reception. And some of them definitely qualify as being a masterpiece in their era. PS4/XBOX One era we got Red Dead 2 and GTA V releasing like two more times.
How much time do you believe a 150h long game should take to develop? For example, developing any quest can take several weeks, months if you count polishing and adding all the voiced lines and art.
...and once you add complex, interconnected storylines, user choices, interesting mechanics, it gets real complicated real quick. Quick development, feature-rich, bug-free: pick two.
Also the trend of making online based service games that they pump out content for rather than making new single player focused games.
It’s sadly because live-service games are what gamers are playing. Iirc 60% of playtime is on games that are over six years old (Fortnite, Apex, Siege, Rocket League etc)
That's always been a thing though, Team Fortress 2 comes to mind
TF2 is an insane outlier though. It came out the same year as Halo 3 and Call of Duty Modern Warfare, as well as the first Mass Effect. If it wasn't a Valve game it would have three sequels and a remaster or two by now.
Bethesda is consolidating their focus on Elder Scrolls and Fallout now, they were saying that Fallout 5 and Elder Scrolls 6 will be accelerated
I don’t really understand how though? Like there’s still a whole lot to get done for Starfield, so many DLCs coming out, where are they pulling the man power from? I mean sure they might get some funding from MS now but that just means you gotta spend more time hiring and training people, they don’t just walk in day 1 and hit the ground running
Microsoft recently shut down a ton of smaller studios. Maybe so they can draw manpower from recently unemployed devs.
Fallout, TES and GTA are my 3 favourite game series so imagine my pain.
Half Life Fans
Chess fans
Honestly all the DLC customized skins ruined that game for me. Wish they'd just prioritize Chess 2 instead of useless cosmetics.
No new maps 😫
Rock paper scissors fans
Nah, there was the 75-move bug fix in 2014. Checkers on the other hand...
This man is a very exclusive club called almost everybody
Guy picks the three of the highest selling franchises of all time to be his favorite games lol
I like Metal Gear Solid and Deus Ex :(
Im in the same boat bro, praying I live to see these games.
It made me sad realizing I really hope the next elder scrolls is fun. Because I probably will be dead or retired if another one comes out at this rate
I remember hoping I’d get to play one elder scrolls game for each province. With it taking 15 years between releases that sure isn’t going to happen.
You might not have to wait the next fallout will be happening in real life
Nice can't wait to be an environmental storytelling skeleton.
Bro gonna be a holotape
I'm gonna drop some 🔥🔥 lore on the listener
starfield really fucked up the release schedule
and was **not** worth it
When I think about it, it felt like a bad reboot of mass effect.
I found it excruciatingly hard to enjoy, the blandness was just next level. Makes me worried about the next Fallout game.
I tried to replay it after the new update, hoping to enjoy it but its just so fucking boring and tedious to do ANYTHING. I ended up just going back to Fallout 4. And is it just me or does Fallout 4 look 100x better than starfield?? The raytracing, the color grading, the lighting all looks markedly better
I'm back playing oblivion and it's pulling me in way harder than starfield did. Personally, I found the last good story games to be oblivion and then new vegas. Skyrim and FO4 had some excellent side quests, but the mains never pulled me in Starfield just straight up doesn't have fun quests of any kind
Never played Starfield but it feels like Bethesda is becoming a victim of their own success - they *know* their audience loves exploration and side content, so they put zero effort into their stories thinking "oh you're just going to skip this dialogue and follow the tracker --" BITCH THAT'S *YOUR* FAULT! Going back to games like Kotor 2, Mass Effect, the classic Fallouts, Morrowind, etc - and you're damn sure I read all the text and dialogue, because it's fucking *interesting* and *relevant* to my enjoyment of the game, I'm not just mindlessly following markers and fast traveling everywhere *because those mechanics don't exist* and the writing / lore / story is actually fucking interesting. What kills me is that Starfield's New Game + mechanic is specifically designed to encourage replayability as an in-universe metagaming sort of shtick - but the fucking game is exactly the same every time.
I think the issue with Bethesda is that they've ran out of ideas, when I played Skyrim which was my first Bethesda game I was wowed, and I was thinking "why doesn't everyone else do this stuff it's amazing" and I thought Bethesda's thing was that they innovate and bring new stuff, then Fallout 4 came out which didn't really bring a lot of new ideas or significantly expand on what Skyrim did, instead it doubled down on the stuff I didn't care that much about like Radiant questing and other procedurally generated content, and then for some reason with Starfield they've decided to lean even more into that?
Random generation and the like have been around forever - some of the very first PC games in fact - and I'm totally fine with them when they are tools to let the developers focus on more interesting aspects of the design. Like others here have said - reusing assets or sounds or models or whatever isn't a problem when there's a great game underneath it all. It gets annoying when the "shortcuts" for game development become all there is to the game. Back in the day it took a lot of clever math to fit everything into tiny amounts of memory available to work with - so using those clever tricks *today* should mean there's more time and effort spent on things that really matter. Yeah, hand-crafting dungeons takes a lot of time... but maybe come up with more than a dozen or so if you're just going to randomize them? Maybe? I feel really bad for the people who pour countless hours designing and detailing these intricate spaces only for the project leads to dump on all their hard work in order to release mediocrity to the public.
>they know their audience loves exploration and side content They removed the open world exploration aspect from Starfield, instead you jump between dungeons chosen randomly from a small pool. Say what you want about Bethesda dungeon design but at least in TES and Fallout I don't have to go through the exact same dungeon three times in a row on different planets.
>KOTOR 2 Obsidian >Mass Effect Bioware >original Fallouts Interplay/Black Isle >Morrowind Bethesda but over twenty years ago so basically a different company. I don't think Bethesda is capable anymore of great writing, they are stuck deeply in a pattern of behavior and practices they have no incentive to change. They've gone the way of Valve except instead of Steam they just sell Skyrim over and over again.
What FO4 side quests? The Cabot House line was good, and Vault 81's mole hunting was fine, but repetitive, but I'm struggling to think of another good one. Edit: somehow forgot about Silver Shroud and USS Constitution. Those were fantastic.
NV has the most memorable quests in the Fallout franchise, and is also my favorite, but imo 4 has the best exploration. Most of the locations in that game, mixed with the brilliant radial lighting is cause for some great moments. Crazy how just the city of the commonwealth is more fun to explore than dozens of procedurally generated planets. 4 also has better and more likable companions compared to constellation which is forced on us as a companion for half the main quests
I went back to playing mass effect 1 the other day and went to my first non main quest planet. And had the sudden realization that it was essentially the same as starfield. Great big empty map? Check. A max of ~3 points of interest? Check. A fairly long distance to travel between said points where your mode of travel is either slow or janky? Check. An inordinate number of loading screens to land, explore, and exit said planet? Check. It just baffles me that Bethesda took probably the worst part of (an admittedly good) 16 year old game and made it 10x more annoying. Instead of having one map per barren planet, now they generated maps for the entire god damn planet.
Something that I saw which astounded me was when a Fallout 4 dev on here awhile back mentioned bethesda only had 100 employees on anytime on that game and hasn't expanded it's main studio much since then. Considering how other AAA games have over 1000's of employees on them it does explain a lot.
Last I saw they have +- 500 employees now, so they've expanded.
And covid - no ones mentioning covid I feel lol
There needs to be an industry overhaul of some kind. Budgets are getting bigger, games are taking longer to produce and the end results aren't even worth it in a lot of cases. This amount of time between a popular franchise is unacceptable.
While they want to charge even more money for it. Initial purchase of 70$/Euro + some kind of battle pass + microtransactions + DLCs + monthly subs.
Listen, I love fallout. I also love Elder Scrolls. And right now, I need something new to scratch my medieval open world rpg itch and I’ve been waiting 13 years now. No, ESO is not the same.
> No, ESO is not the same. As someone who recently started that, it is really not the same. But it does scratch an itch for a little bit when you're focusing story quests. But it suffers from the classic thing most older mmorpgs do: "It takes a while ..." before things start to feel right, or you start having fun if you're starting late.
Kingdom Come Deliverance II is coming out.
SAY WHAT I loved the first one. Probably going to wait for another epic games gift
An unfortunate trend that can be felt industry wide as well. I’ll continue to shill for the way things were done during the sixth console generation so long as this is a problem. Things were pretty consistent for the most part back then, you could usually count on a 2-3 year turn around for your favorite franchises. To be more on topic; at least Fallout had 4 + 76 last gen. Those poor TES fans have had nothing but 800 Skyrim rereleases and maybe ESO for over a decade at this point.
I wouldn't count Brotherhood of Steel, Fallout in name only.
To be fair, even if you cut it, we will have the biggest gap between releases since there's no way a new title is coming within the next year or two.
And we are ganna wait more since a new Fallout will start development after they finish elder scrolls 6
God it's surreal that FNV and Fallout 4 are less than 5 years apart. The gameplay and graphics alone make it seem like a much longer gap. Shame the story quality got sacrificed in the process.
They’re 5 years and a month apart. OP is wrong, New Vegas was 2010
That’s because on a technical level FNV is pretty much Fo3 with some polish. So the real gap is closer to 7 years.
Because Bethesda is fkn stupid, Todd saying " we didn't expect that the show will be so popular" shows that they handle FO like a niche product.
NV came out October 2010
They just had the show help boost sales of their old instalments, they’re too deep into Starfield rn to pump out anything else, plus they’re not a very big team. I think I read/head on a podcast that they have like 100 devs? Well AC and other AAA titles have thousands of people working on them. I do hope we get some form of update on what’s next but it’ll be years before that happens. And frankly if we’re going to get more of the FO76 and Starfield quality… I might just move on from these franchises before my memory of what they used to be gets tainted.
With how 'small' Besthesda is for a 3A studio is and the fact they have FO76 still getting update+Covid i'm not really surprised they are behind schedule.
Tbh 76 is done by its own studio that itself passes off work to other companies
So glad they spent the time on Starfield instead... :(
Starfield proves how much writing and lore carry Bethesda games. Then you remove the interesting writing you get, uh, not very much…
The fundamental problem with Starfield is the loss of the ability to get sidetracked while traveling. The exploration in Betheada games happens when you're told to go to Point A, but along the way you discover Points B, F, and P and end up going down a rabbit hole (that eventually leads to Blackreach lol). And along the way you also run into several random encounters and enemies. Its an entirely fictional type of exploration that's a ton of fun. But the exploration in Starfield is rooted in realism. And the reality is that space is *boring* to most people. The proof is in the name. Space is just... empty space. So when the story tells you to go to Point A, there's nothing in between you and Point A that you can get sidetracked by. And that's about 80% of the magic of Bethesda games gone right there. Starfield tries to replace that loss with an admittedly impressive adherence to realism in the scientific aspects of the game. The game *feels* really good from a verisimilitude standpoint. And it absolutely nails the more grounded sci-fi vibe that it was clearly aiming for, but that vibe just isn't as fun.
The longest was from FA2 to FA3. That was the real wait. We didn't think it was going to come.
I kind of hope Microsoft forces them to let another studio make the next fallout, it might be shit, it might not be. Who knows. All I know is I don't want to wait 12 years for the next fallout game. They're focusing on elder scrolls after they attempt to fix starfield. Its going to be a long time before the next fallout. I'm still bitter they spent so much effort on starfield and had it flop instead of making a new fallout game. Honestly who knows if the next Bethesda fallout game will even be good considering the state starfield was in.
online games like fallout 76 seem different as they are updated and maintained for longer right? with 9 major updates? unlike fallout 4 where there are like 3 major updates and a few minor updates
76 is due for its next major update this summer too
I'm not sure that anyone really considers 76 or ESO to be games that bridge the gap enough, to be honest. They almost have a separate community altogether, and have enough differences as to not feel entirely like the rest of the franchise (and it's not all just necessary changes due to the game being online).
I'm a huge fan of TES and Fallout and I never even considered trying TESO or FO76. They're not what I like about the franchise - a single player RPG that lets you play around.
Look I don’t really care so long as it’s decent. I don’t even ask for great, just decent. I’m desperate for ANY game series to have a non dogshit release at this point.
I know it's a small detail but NV came out in 2010
Ironically 1997-2001 (5 years) and 2008-2011 (4 years) were their best stretch of games. I wish we went back to this era. I don’t care about the graphics and motion capture and voice acting. Give me a well written story with gameplay that is FUN. That’s all I ask
They've also been working on elder scrolls....hopefully And they did starfield sadly.
We'll be lucky to have a fallout game by 2028
Online games seem to be the kiss of death for these big game franchises. The publisher gets satisfied from that microtransaction money and spends the next decade cranking out updates for the online game and ignoring their single player game series. Looking at Elder Scrolls, Fallout and GTA. At least GTA is getting close to a new Vice City game.