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.
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.
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
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.
