Anyway, apparently Bethesda hasn’t been too dissuaded by the lukewarm reception its space sim got. Pagliarulo says it’s now joined Fallout and Elder Scrolls on the podium as one of Bethesda’s "big three”.
What a bunch of fucking clowns. Smoked too much copium it looks like.
Saying it is in the top three IPs for a company that only has three IPs is technically correct.
“This is, of course, a slightly wild thing for the studio that made Morrowind (its actual best game) and Skyrim (its most popular game by miles) to say”
Accurate
FO3 did some thing much better than NV. NV is the best written, by far, but it’s different, not better, for gameplay. FO3 was closer to the original games in gameplay. There were a lot more random events while traveling, and they could react with each other in really unique ways. NV essentially removed this. There are a lot of other areas of difference too, but NV always gets remembered as better, and I think that’s largely because the things FO3 did better are systemic, so less noticeable, while NV had better stories, which you have to notice.
Emil, Howard, and Hines are why Bethesda can’t make good games anymore. Corporate hacks that have pushed for more mundane gameplay with every new game.
They also spearheaded piecemeal DLCs and consistently try to find ways to monetize mods.
I think that’s ultimately it. The next TES is going to be a disaster.
In August 2023, Todd Howard described his intent behind The Elder Scrolls VI as wanting to make “the ultimate fantasy-world simulator”,
That’s when you should have known. TES is at heart a novelistic series that is owned by a studio whose entire style is now “short term crafting and gameplay loops occurring within a physics simulation”.
The same could be said of Skyrim, but tons of people loved it and it’s still a great framework for modding if Bethesda themselves don’t give it a good storyline.
Skyrim had a narrative, it had stories that raised curiosity enough to engage with the gameplay loops. Some of the side quest were even pretty good, the main quest was meh.
Increasingly Bethesda seems to be building their games around gameplay loops with narrative increasingly ancillary. They’ve optimized for grind without giving a reason to grind.
What do you mean Skyrim? Morrowind was clearly the best game they ever made.
Skyrim had their best gameplay loop, but Morrowind’s writing carried the entire series. Very excited for Skywind to give me the best of both.
Been waiting since 2012. Tried some early builds too, will be very excited to play Skywind it releases eventually.
shit we might get tes 6 by the time skywind comes out 😂
funny how we’ve been waiting for both for about 12 years now
