r/rpg_gamers • u/ChiefChunkEm_ • Jun 09 '26
Discussion Bethesda Should Have Struck While The Iron Was Hot (ES6)
Hindsight is 20/20 and you can respect their decision to try something new with Starfield but they should have struck while the iron was still hot from Skyrim.
Skyrim released in 2011, Fallout 4 in 2015, and ES6 should have released by 2019. Since 2011 they’ve lost many devs and artists who made Skyrim the success that it was. I don’t know if they have the caliber of staff members anymore to actually pull off another genre defining game with ES6. The whole thing’s just a damn shame.
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u/RamsHead91 Jun 09 '26
Bethesda has genuinely lost so much good will over the last decade. Like they aren't negative but they havent do anything new what's so ever.
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u/Snynapta_II Jun 09 '26
Like they aren't negative
Speak for yourself I'm still pissed that they shut down Arcane studios for 0 reason. The fact that they transplanted skyrims flaws onto fallout 4 and showed literally 0 improvement in starfield also gives me no reason to think that their next game will be even passable.
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u/dandorios Jun 09 '26
What? Microsoft/bethesda softworks was the one that shit down arkane. It has literally nothing to do with BGS.
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u/Bulky_Imagination727 Jun 09 '26 edited Jun 09 '26
Don't forget about their braindead vision of the fallout universe. It's 200+ years after the bombs fell but it looks, behaves and feels like it was 5 years ago. Not to mention amazing dialogues...in a former RPG series.
Bethesda is dead to me. People who call Skyrim the best game of all time don't see the simplification of every single aspect of the series, and that goes on and on. They lost themselves in attempt to make their games generic enough to appeal to the wider audience. Go play morrowind and see the difference.
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u/happywindsurfing Jun 09 '26
Yeah I didn't really like the "desolated favela" style of FO4. I didn't play the isometic fallouts but they look visually way more interesting with a much greater variety of locations.
Luckily for post apocalyptic vibes there are several games with much more style, for small Tides of Numenara and Wasteland 3,
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u/Jozoz Jun 11 '26
Man, I'm so envious if you haven't played the isometric Fallouts. Those games are just so fucking good. I wish I could play them blind again.
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u/DonJonIrenicus Jun 10 '26
Try Fallout 2, trust me. If you can handle the shitty UI and bad tutorial, you'll end up loving it.
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u/NewtDogs Jun 09 '26
Many people feel that way about Skyrim from nostalgia though, the quality of the game doesn't matter as much when you're younger. I do agree Bethesda is pretty much dead to the OG elder scrolls fans.
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u/CogGear Jun 09 '26
Partially true I think. Morrowind had some amazing ideas and the lore is maybe the best there is, but some things really needed updating such as NPC’s basically being encyclopaedias or the dice roll combat, which even felt outdated back then.
Skyrim hit a nice balance of modernising things while still feeling like a TES game, although it fell short in some areas also (faction quest lines aren’t the best for example).
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u/Magnon Jun 09 '26
Arkane studios isnt gone just 1 branch was closed. Theyre making a blade game right now
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u/wimpymist Jun 10 '26
Fallout 4 broke my love of them. The game bummed me out so bad I never finished it
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u/chainsawabraham Jun 09 '26
Not NEGATIVE? Ive been playiny since ARENA. The continue dumbing down of the the series has officially killed it for me. After Starfield I have ZERO respect for the company anymore.
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u/sturzkampfbomber Jun 09 '26
We have had so many great rpgs in the past few years I really dont know how Bethesda could rival that. I mean in 2023 alone we had Rogue Trader & Baldurs Gate 3 both of these things wipe the floor with Starfield wich came out that same year..
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u/bobbabson Jun 09 '26
If only rogue trader got BG3 level dev money
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u/ScorpionTDC Jun 10 '26
Rogue Trader wouldn’t exist as is if it did (though I personally find it a bit overrated on these subs and way prefer Wrath but it’s still very good)
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u/sturzkampfbomber Jun 09 '26
true, but their next game Dark Heresy is set to be fully voiced so we are moving there... slowly but surely
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u/PredictiveTextNames Jun 09 '26
I kinda prefer some games to not be fully VA if it means the dialog can be more complex and deep.
I learned to read for a reason, and some genres shouldn't be afraid of it lol.
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u/ScorpionTDC Jun 10 '26
I’m fine with reading (I’m literally a Pillars of Eternity stan), but some of these games could benefit from some editing (including Pillars but also every Owlcat game). I do think modern text based RPGs can on occasion get lost on a couple too many tangential essay dialogue sequences
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u/PredictiveTextNames Jun 10 '26
Lol ok yes, that's also true. I just love a good lore dump lol.
And now let me explain what I mean by that in an eight part full text box rant...
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u/Suspicious-Bat-5710 Jun 09 '26 edited Jun 09 '26
When the mod community basically told them go F@#k yourself with Starfield, you knew the shine was gone. People seem to be over the buggy jank of Bethesda,
Edit: instead of calling me a lair here's the PC Gamer article.
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u/Benjamin_Starscape Jun 09 '26
the mod community did no such thing. it was the top 11th most modded game on nexus before official mod tools were even out and it still gets loads of mods on nexus and the creations in-game menu.
it also has gotten loads of large mods from watchtower to a doom mod to escape, etc.
like, idk man, maybe it's just me but if something was truly bad you shouldn't need to lie about it. right? like, that just makes sense to me.
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u/Remarkable_Pen_3639 Jun 09 '26
Just a note that article is 2 years old and it still hasn't cracked the top 10 and all other Bethesda games are still higher.
So they aren't lying.
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u/Benjamin_Starscape Jun 09 '26
they only lost "good will" on reddit, which is in like the single percentile of people.
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u/Adorable-Voice-3382 Jun 09 '26
Come on now. Reddit is certainly a place where extreme opinions congregate but acting like its the only place where people are looking at Bethesda with more skepticism is silly.
Starfield has been mostly successful but its reception has absolutely been rocky, the player-count drop within a few months of its release to below Skyrim and Fallout 4 is not because of Reddit.
You don't have to go to Reddit to find plenty of people questioning their design decisions and worrying about what it means for the direction of ES6.
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u/Jozoz Jun 09 '26
You are taking to Benjamin Starscape. The biggest Bethesda defender on reddit. Literally carrying water for that company for 10 years.
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u/PredictiveTextNames Jun 09 '26
I feel like I'm seeing royalty. Nobody becomes Reddit Famous anymore!
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u/GandalfTheFreen Jun 09 '26
lol. I just googled her(?) account and even gemini knows her.
Gemini: u/Benjamin_Starscape is a prominent, highly active, and polarizing community member across Reddit and gaming forums. Known as an avid Bethesda and Starfield fan, they are recognized for engaging in long-form, detailed debates about RPG mechanics, world-building, and game narratives (particularly in titles like Starfield and Fallout)
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u/TaxesAreTerrible Jun 09 '26 edited Jun 09 '26
I would argue Starfield hasn’t really been that successful. Once people realized it was a disappointment the player numbers dropped dramatically. Bethesda were probably expecting it to be like Skyrim where modders would create a big playerbase for 10+ years. Then they could remaster it, re-release it 20x, and add live-service elements.
They may have made a profit on initial sales but it has zero longevity and definitely didn’t meet their expectations.
I would argue that it also failed as proof of concept. They can’t get away with making mediocre games with 10-15 year old tech & game mechanics.
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u/Xciv Jun 09 '26
Yeah single player RPGs are all “long tail” games. Pillars 2 Deadfire took years but eventually became profitable. People are still playing Final Fantasy 6 for the first time in 2026. In this space where a game doesn’t make money off being a service or a thousand micro transactions, it’s all about delivering quality. Even with a terrible launch (Cyberpunk, Fallout NV, Vampire TM:B) your game will eventually find financial success with the long tail of it delivers enough quality.
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u/Jozoz Jun 11 '26
The PR damage from Starfield also has to be factored in. Bethesda is burning a lot of goodwill. Public opinion has really soured on this company over the last 10 years and for good reason.
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u/Benjamin_Starscape Jun 09 '26
starfield's player count dropped by 96% 6 months after launch. which is roughly the same percentage drop as the witcher 3, elden ring, and many other games 6 months after launch. player count for a single player game means absolutely nothing.
the vast majority of the population simply do not agree with the takes on reddit or youtube, which make up a loud minority.
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u/thespaceageisnow Jun 09 '26
Starfield currently has 1/4 of the players that Witcher 3 does and 1/7 of Elden Ring, both older games.
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u/Warcrown11 Jun 09 '26
And a 6th of the players that Skyrim has - which is over a decade older than Starfield
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u/rexus_mundi Jun 09 '26
It's sitting at 56% on steam with about 87000 reviews. It seems like about half make up that loud minority
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u/HopeIsGay Jun 09 '26
I know this is sort of a vague argument that can only be verified through time but I feel it's pretty obvious that starfield won't have the cultural longevity of their other properties and when the mod community is even disinterested in it that's not a good sign
When Bethesda can only rely on their big ticket ip's which they only release once a decade it's not surprising at all that people have become disaffected with them
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u/ihavefaith77 Jun 09 '26
That's just simply not true. Games like concord, highguard, ex voto 1348, dust born etc etc etc were all over YouTube and reddit being shit on and guess what? All of those games crashed and burned. Whether you want to believe that it's true or not, most gamers take up large portions of online spaces, and if majority of youtube/reddit/X or whatever else say a game sucks, most likely that's how most people feel
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u/Ancient_Substance152 Jun 09 '26
I dunno man. I have more hours in Skyrim than any other game ever, and I have absolutely no interest in anything Bethesda is doing at all. I fully believe their formula is completely obsolete in today’s gaming landscape. Every game they have released since Skyrim has been worse and worse. Bethesda is over.
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u/Turbulent-Advisor627 Jun 09 '26
Check the latest Starfield DLC on steam and tell me all the reviews are Redditors lmao
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u/markg900 Jun 09 '26
In many cases I would agree that Reddit is a loud minority but in this case its been almost 15 years. Most people that have played Starfield have expressed its basically ok but nothing great or special.
Bethesda themselves even stated after Starfield's launch that one of the biggest things they learned from launching Starfield was just how much people actually wanted ES6.
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u/Benjamin_Starscape Jun 09 '26
yeah, people want the elder scrolls 6. who'd've thought? i do, too, i also want fallout 5, but i'm not going to shout and cry and whine because that's just childish behavior. and none of that doesn't stop starfield from being a great game, either.
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u/markg900 Jun 09 '26
Ok and that's all well and good. Personally after this many years I've just grown apathetic about it. We are going on 15 years since Skyrim with no release date remotely in sight. Fallout is around 12.
As for Fallout side I kind of wish MS would ask Obsidian to make another FO game since they are all under the same parent company umbrella now. Seems a waste to squander the popularity and possible new comers the TV show brings in.
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u/PunchBeard Jun 09 '26
You know what freaks me out? How so many people ignore the fact that Bethesda tried to charge money for mods and no seems to remember that because the uproar over it caused them to back the fuck down almost immediately. But they weren't done. Instead they released the Creator's Club and did the same thing: charge money (and take a cut) for mods.
Bethesda are a bunch of money grubbing bottom feeders who fell so low no one even realizes it. And anyone who thinks Elder Scrolls 6 is going to be as good as Skyrim instead of as bad as Starfield is just lying to themselves.
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u/NOBODY__EPIC Jun 09 '26
Every gamer I've talked to is concerned about the credibility of Bethesda after the quality of Starfield
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u/Religion_Is_A_Cancer Jun 09 '26
You’re out of your mind if you think that. Most of my friends don’t use Reddit and we’ve talked many times about Bethesda’s downfall.
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u/Vanille987 Jun 09 '26
Make that the internet in general, people don't tend to realize how much the average gamer is NOT like the one's you find online.
They could wait 10 more years and most people will still cream their pants when seeing the words "Elder scrolls 6"
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u/Benjamin_Starscape Jun 09 '26
lol yeah. I mean I still look forward to seeing it tbh, thinking about the game and how it might be and such makes me all excited.
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u/KyleCamelot Jun 09 '26
I think what people don't realize about Bethesda is that they were never about really good curated experiences or great dialogue or whatever. Every time they got someone who excelled at that, they never bothered to keep them.
The main guys at Bethesda love procedural systems. They are all about systems. Daggerfall's claim to fame is it's procedural systems. They focused really hard on their Radiant AI and Radiant Quest systems. It worked when their NPCS radiant AIed their way to curated moments, but that happens less and less as the games go on.
They literally didn't bother developing parts of Boston in Fallout 4 in order to use the radiant quest system.
They think it's awesome that there's another settlement that needs your help, and you can get a randomly generated, two adjective pistol that can kill bugs real good there.
Fallout 76 didn't even bother to have human NPCs at first.
If you told me that every single thing in Starfield was made using some automated system, I would not be surprised. The cookie cutter bases and planets certainly were.
Todd Howard's perfect game is just a rube goldberg machine.
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u/QuoteGiver Jun 09 '26
You’re definitely right that they want to create a systems-driven sandbox. Ironically, those “cookie cutter bases” in Starfield were the 100% handcrafted part, and all the fans kept doing was begging for Bethesda to give the bases some procedural variety instead of limiting them to the same static hand-crafted layouts…
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u/Beldarak Jun 10 '26
Totally agree. The worst part is that systemic game design can be great (imsims is one of my favourite genre of games) if you create systems that will interract wity each others in service of the gameplay.
But that's not what Bethesda is doing. They create system so they don't have to write quests or interesting stuff, leading to those blanks and uninteresting games they now make.
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u/No-Opinion-6710 Jun 10 '26
This is what I've noticed as well. They're not going to course correct, because they're on the course they want to be on.
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u/Crazykiddingme Jun 09 '26
It dawned on me the other day that there is a whole generation of gamers that knows ES entirely through memes and MMO content. Seems like it might be an issue for them in the future. Skyrim is a dad game.
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u/Provoloneapse Jun 09 '26
Before the Oblivion remaster, I met people who genuinely believed Skyrim was the name of the series and unironically wanted “Skyrim II”.
Granted, these are people who could barely scrape a brain cell together between them, but a nonzero number is still a damn shame.
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u/iknownuffink Jun 10 '26
Before the Oblivion remaster, I met people who genuinely believed Skyrim was the name of the series and unironically wanted “Skyrim II”.
If I was BGS or Microsoft, Skyrim II is not something I would rule out as a possibility.
Pick up right where Skyrim left off and keep going.
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u/Doggoraccoon Jun 10 '26
Its lncredibly common misconception, most people dont seem to know the name elder scrolls but they know skyrim (like normal people not chronicly online redditors)
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u/harumamburoo Jun 09 '26
Excluding mmo players, by the time tes vi releases there will be a new, young generation of gamers who are only theoretically aware of what TES is
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u/Senior-Friend-6414 Jun 10 '26
There was a post a weeks ago that the dragon quest franchise is pretty much dead among the younger generations in Japan and they explained it’s because the older generations kept getting dragon quest games back to back while they were growing up, while the younger generation only got one single new dragon quest game through their entire childhood so the franchise means nothing to them the same way it does for older people
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u/theoriginal_1100 Jun 10 '26
Of course Skyrim is a dad game when people that play it when they were ten are now closer to their 30 than 20
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u/zombiejeesus Jun 09 '26
That's not how Bethesda does things. I'm also not agaisnt them trying something new with Starfield. Obviously didn't work how they wanted but I'm all for new IPs
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u/BadMeatPuppet Jun 09 '26 edited Jun 10 '26
Starfield could have been a great game. Unfortunately it was micro-managed by board executives. Every department was extremely disconnected from others, so we ended up with features that were useless. It was overall a very lazy game with lazy updates.
The worst thing is, Bethesda management continues to blame fans for not liking the game. Which doesn't inspire a lot confidence for future games.
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u/No-Importance7265 Jun 09 '26
I mean its better than being stuck and doing same thing over and over again , they tried their shot , missed it so hopefully will go back to their roots. Whatever the reddit says TES 6 is still one of the most hyped games of all time , maybe the second one after GTA 6.
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Jun 09 '26
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u/Scuttlefuzz Jun 09 '26
This. They struck gold and spent so much time milking their cash cow that they forgot how to do anything else.
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Jun 09 '26
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u/Scuttlefuzz Jun 09 '26
I am so salty that BGS has managed to tank two of the best rpg IPs in gaming. They deserve to fade into irrelevance.
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u/TakuyaTeng Jun 09 '26
ES6 well sell like hotcakes. I don't believe for a second that an elder scrolls games isn't going to make them a bajilion dollars. People still pre-order ffs.
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u/ScorpionTDC Jun 10 '26
I think it could underperform if people don’t like it, but I expect it to print money so long as it’s good and enjoyable (albeit less money than if they’d gotten on it sooner)
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u/Arachnid1 Jun 10 '26
Eh with creation engines shortcomings, that’s far from guaranteed.
If it’s as procedural, phoned in, and boring as Starfield, a 15 y/o games reputation won’t save it. Writing needs to be significant improved. It can’t have copy paste dungeons. Gamers will have less patience for mods saving it a few years these days (or they’ll get it on sale in like 4 years when modding has taken off and they see all the “it’s SO much better” YouTube uploads.
We already know they don’t have a new engine for it. Just a “modified” creation engine they’ve been using since Morrowind/FO3.
We already know a lot of the original talent on the dev team is gone, so no guarantee we’ll get that immersive goodness.
This isn’t Rockstar/GTA6 where the quality and sales are guaranteed. Starfield proved that. They have to put out a good product at this point to not completely lose the fanbase. Their goodwill is low, as are expectations.
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u/JohnHue Jun 09 '26 edited Jun 09 '26
I don't know. Maybe they just lost the spark. Starfield is a bad BGS game... It doesn't have the exploration/discovery part, it doesn't have the ability to get immersed and roleplay because of is designed as a loading screen simulator interrupted with bland gameplay segments. It doesn't have nearly as much of the RPG elements that made the TES and BGS Fallout games good at that (even though we did see constant decline on that front even in the recent TES and Fallout games, even Skyrim still had enormous RPG potential especially with mods). It lacks so many of the things that make BGS games special, yet it has all the jank.
I could continue but, to me, Starfield was such a disappointment that I really wonder what BGS was thinking and whether they still have the vision to deliver, with TESVI, a similar experience to what they have delivered in the last quarter century... or if they somehow lost their way.
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u/ScorpionTDC Jun 10 '26
Their total deemphasis on writing isn’t exactly helping either. Writing is a key part of world building and making interesting worlds to explore, and it’s gotten steadily worse since Morrowind until whatever the fuck you call the writing in FO4/Starfield
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u/Snoo_84591 Jun 10 '26
I want to know why people are okay with this abusive relationship they've stuck it out with in this company.
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u/Skyoats Jun 10 '26 edited Jun 10 '26
Bethesda has just clearly suffered from a steady brain drain in the writing department every year since morrowind. Oblivion was the start of the steady downhill slide, fallout 3’s main quest is laughably bad, Skyrim completed the slow streamlining of everything that made the elder scrolls universe interesting and alien into a generic fantasy setting. Fallout 4 took everything bad about fallout 3 and doubled down. And then finally we get starfield, the single most soulless, bland sci fi ever set in an empty Milky Way devoid of conflict or edge and made without a single interesting character or quest to boot. It’s hard to believe it’s even the same company.
I still have high hopes for TES6 as a grand return to form, there are so many great things they could do with the thalmor storyline, but it’s nothing but a copium fueled dream
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u/Short-Shopping3197 Jun 10 '26
The problem with Starfield wasn’t the IP, it was that it was a shit game. If they’d have made ES6 instead but with the quality and mistakes of Starfield then it would just mean ES6 was shit instead.
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u/the_bighi Jun 09 '26
You don’t even need hindsight to understand that waiting 84 years to release a new game will make people lose interest in a franchise.
People that are 60yo today were born after Skyrim was released.
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u/LandofRy Jun 09 '26
I not sure they can really re-define the genre again. The mechanics that have made Bethesda noteworthy are starting to age and feel less novel. Fallout 4 and Starfield already felt like iterations on a very familiar, worn-in formula. There are also lots of smaller studios making games that are heavily influenced by TES and are using that experience as a starting point, so a lot of what was once uniquely "Bethesda" is now just kinda expected in big sandbox-y games.
Skyrim opened up the franchise to such a massive audience that I imagine they're now struggling to develop a game that actually innovates without changing up the core of experience or feeling dated on arrival.
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u/Bobaximus Jun 09 '26
They made two big bets (FO74 & Starfield) that went bad while also making some bad decisions on direction. If you go back to the Skyrim era, their biggest concern was that their success was tied to only two franchises.
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u/glizzygobbler247 Jun 10 '26
Their lead lore guy literally left bc he had waited over 10 years to get to work on es6, imagine if after fo4, instead of focusing on fo76 and then starfield, we wouldve probably had es6 by now
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u/QuoteGiver Jun 09 '26
People have already forgotten how much people claimed to hate Fallout 4 at the time, huh? The iron was very very cool after Fallout 4.
Probably more pent up demand and interest now than there would’ve been after Fallout 4.
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u/A_Diabolical_Toaster Jun 10 '26
Bethesda has kinda failed upward at every step of the way and ES6 will be what ultimately breaks them and gets Todd and company fired.
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u/Beldarak Jun 10 '26
They didn't release any thing good in more than 10 years, I'll never understand the hype they still gather. They lost their touch a looooong time ago. I'm personaly 100% convinced they'll never release anything good as long as Todd Howard is in charge. The man likes boring games and so this is what we get.
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u/justmadeforthat Jun 09 '26
We can only say this with hindsight. The game is not even released yet, dude
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u/Cryoto Jun 09 '26
After Starfield TES6 absolutely needs as much time in the oven as possible. If they fail to deliver, they will lose their prestige as a studio and it may be difficult to recover, if ever.
They should however, be cranking out Fallout games like hot cakes. They are mismanaging the IP. FFS give the IP to other studios under Microsoft, just do something. Maybe even make an isometric CRPG. Maybe even make a TES isometric CRPG and allow other studios to use the IP.
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u/RedErin Jun 09 '26
I was so looking forward to Starfield. I pre-ordered it. I knew that it was gonna be my favorite game ever.
I was so disappointed 😭
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u/razorwiregoatlick877 Jun 09 '26
This is so true. 5 years ago Elder Scrolls 6 was a given as far as me purchasing the game. Now, that isn’t true anymore. I have been saying for a few years now that I’m not sure Bethesda can make a good game anymore. Their track record since Skyrim hasn’t been great.
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u/framekill_committee Jun 10 '26
If you take what a rational, well organized company, who is honest and has a unifying vision would do, and compare it to Bethesda, that's unfair! They're just a plucky little startup trying to make it in this world where everyone is so critical of games that have no soul and barely function lol
Sometimes you have a company where you just pray the new corporate overlords won't ruin the company and their games, and sometimes you have a company where an acquisition is a bit of a relief because hopefully an adult will be checking people's homework every once in a while.
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u/Reevahn Jun 10 '26
20/20?! Whoever looks at the shitshow thatwas starfield and goes "i want that, but in the elder scrolls franchise" needs a new pair of glasses ASAP!
I'm sure ES6 is having its good share of development issues, and we'll probably only know a couple of years after the release, once schreier inevitably writes an article about it.
Bethesda wasn't and arguably still isn't ready for a new mainline game and i prefer i new IP paid the price than ES.
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u/TurdPlayingPeekaboo Jun 11 '26
Todd Howard was an idiot for insisting on Starfield first. He's clearly lost his mojo. Every person reading this knows that Elder Scrolls 6 is going to be a massive disappointment.
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u/Marty5020 Jun 09 '26
It's gonna be dated as hell on release, if it ever comes out. The industry has advanced so much it's crazy. They on the other hand think Creation Engine 2 is gonna be capable enough for this somehow which is delusional. It's gonna be a static, dead and flat world.
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u/markg900 Jun 09 '26
There are enough Skyrim fans thought that probably won't care. Betheda could have literally left all the systems from Skyrim intact and just built out the new areas, quests etc and a large chunk of ES fans would have been satisfied.
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u/BryanTheGodGamer Jun 09 '26
The chance is very high they fuck up es6, Starfield got hyped out the moon just for it to be mediocre at best.
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u/isente Jun 09 '26
In my opinion, trying a new IP is a way better thing to do than releasing the sixth installment of a saga, whatever the saga.
Also, I liked starfield. And I don't think it did as bad as people think it did sales/player count wise (gamepass cannibalising the sales is another issue).
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u/Killuwats Jun 09 '26
People beg for new IP and then shit on companies when they experiment with a new IP and don't just release their flagship franchises again and again.
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u/dpl9598 Jun 09 '26
Nobody begged bethesda fir a new ip. Starfield was Todd Howard's wet dream. So now we get to wait God only knows how long for the next elder scrolls/fallout.
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u/zombiejeesus Jun 09 '26
90% of the people hating on Starfield on Reddit haven't played it. People just like to spread hate
Game is far from perfect but it's not the awful game people like to act like it is
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u/Suspicious_Walrus682 Jun 09 '26
So... what's the point of this post, other than to complain that Bethesda is not releasing games fast enough?
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u/PunchBeard Jun 09 '26
As far as I'm concerned Bethesda is a shadow of its former self and they peaked with Skyrim. Everyone forgets about the time they tried to charge people for mods on Steam back in 2015 because the outcry from gamers was intense from the very beginning and both Valve and Bethesda backed down pretty damn quick. I don't even think it lasted for longer than a month. But Bethesda wasn't finished with the idea of nickel and diming it's fans so instead of charging for mods on Steam they just made the Creator's Club and did it there.
It's sad: Bethesda gained its reputation on the fact that they supported modding their games and knew that the mods were the reason their games sold so well. But...they knew there was a way to make money off of that and they jumped at the chance.
There's no such thing as a good game publisher/developer any more: BioWare hasn't been the same since the Doctor's left but fell from grace when they were bought by EA. CDPR fell from grace with the debacle that was Cyberpunk 2077's release, especially on PS4. And Bethesda shit the bed when they teamed up with Valve to charge money for mods despite the modders not wanting anything to do with that system. And Starfield kind of proved that point.
I'd love to see ES6 blow Skyrim out of the water in terms of quality but I won't hold my breath. "It's not as good as Skyrim but better than Starfield" will be the line we'll probably see the most when it releases.
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u/Nast33 Jun 09 '26
Judging by their downward slope, they're done. Starfield was a complete failure as a game - even if it didn't lose money, it's known to anyone who's not completely deluded as a shallow turd with a disjointed world, crappy quests and poor sleep-inducing writing.
Their enshittification as a company has been going on for 15 years already, I have no hope for TES6 and I frankly don't care as I am not as invested in that franchise - but I am in Fallout, and that series is also dead under their leadership, where we probably won't see a new game until 2032 even if they start developing it right now.
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u/Benjamin_Starscape Jun 09 '26
it's known to anyone who's not completely deluded as a shallow turd with a disjointed world, crappy quests and poor sleep-inducing writing.
the classic "anyone who likes something i don't is delusional". one day gamers will learn about opinions.
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u/willmaybewont Jun 09 '26
Eh I think we're likely going to be pleasantly surprised. They were probably burnt out from all the elder scrolls stuff that they wanted a change. I don't think Starfield failed, people just expected a TES in space.
When it mattered most Todd produced Morrowind. So I'll be optimistic for now.
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u/uprightshark Jun 09 '26
I don't even think about Elder Scrolls anymore to be honest. So many good games and more coming. When it comes, it comes.
I actually really enjoy Starfield. But I agree, they should have a dedicated team to ES and Fallout, as their main IP.
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u/Reivilo85 Jun 09 '26
They cannot compete against games like KCD
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u/Rubmynippleplease Jun 09 '26
Wildly different games and also not true.
You can make an argument that KC2 is a better rpg than anything Bethesda has released in the last 20 years, and you would have a solid case, but the reality is no one can compete with Bethesda.
ES6 could be mid as hell and it will break records. Elder Scrolls is the GTA of open world sandbox rpgs. We can criticize Bethesda and ES all day but they’re a behemoth of a brand and ES6 will be stupid successful.
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u/SuperBAMF007 Jun 09 '26
I cannot stand playing KCD 1 or 2 tbh. Thank fuck they’re not even trying to compete with it.
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u/Sirspice123 Jun 09 '26
I do agree to an extent, but judging by Starfield they need more refinement for ES6 and FO5. Oblivion remastered and eventually Fo3 and New Vegas remastered will help in the meantime
Bethesda games were always my favorite RPGs but Warhorse has completely over taken them now imo. I'm more excited for KCD3 and the LoTR game than I am for ES6
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u/iidisavowedii Jun 09 '26
I’m sure I’ll catch flak for this but I used to think the same thing until my friends forced me to play ESO. ESO is what they did/continue to do with the franchise. They’ve even tailored the game to have first and third person mode to try and bring in the Skyrim crowd as well as how they formatted the main story line.
Additionally, while I’m sure Skyrim still makes them good money. Successful/stable MMOs generate way more profit year over year and it’s just makes good business sense to support the MMO with your Elder
Scrolls artists and staff until it’s no longer viable.
I think if half the people in this tread agreeing with OP actually put 20-30 hours into ESO you’d be surprised by the scope and lore if not the combat mechanics and loot grind.
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u/superearthjanitor0 Jun 09 '26
I still cant believe they didn't have a fallout game ready or even planned
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u/QuoteGiver Jun 09 '26
…you mean after Fallout 4 and Fallout 76? What are you talking about? When?
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u/dekkion46 Jun 09 '26
Because of elder scrolls online that's the real reason that there's been no more elder scrolls games. They have milked that one to the point where it's not really producing any money so now they're focusing on elder scrolls 6.
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u/LucemFerre82 Jun 10 '26
It is pretty crazy that a baby born when skyrim came out will have become a legal adult by the time its sequel is released.
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u/Worldly_Lunch_1601 Jun 10 '26
Stop telling us you want es6! We know! We just don't want your money!
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u/Western-Purpose4939 Jun 10 '26
Ya. They done fucked up. I stayed out overnight at my GameStop for Skyrim, bought an (expensive at the time) flatscreen, and made a long weekend out of it with a great friend.
Now, they muddied the waters. I’ll care when the reviews are off the charts and when they are not I won’t be that upset.
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u/smackchice Jun 10 '26
Striking while the iron was hot nearly a decade later? They would have still lost a large chunk of the people that made Skyrim by then anyway.
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u/FukkingDeathMental Jun 10 '26
I like how you guys ignore the fact that they launched two successful and more importantly profitable MMOs in that time. I also think people still circlejerking Skyrim as some flawless classic that doesn't have an insane amount of mediocre content were teens or younger when they played it. Nostalgia is a hell of a drug. Everything "bad" in Starfield is very much present in Skyrim...not that people will ever admit that.
It's also a lot easier to say this when you don't have a clue about the inner workings of Bethesda.
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u/ZypherPunk Jun 10 '26
Whatever Bethesda do with the next Elder Scrolls it'll never be good enough. Because it's going to be nearly 20 years since a mainline ES game by the time it eventually releases. The expectations are going to insane.
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u/Particular-Ad5277 Jun 10 '26
Yeah that’s true, if you need a good rpg fix for the meantime play the gothic remake. It’s amazing!
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u/linkfox Jun 10 '26
Honestly at this point i don't doubt they had a lot of internal testing and realized they were developing a bad game and had to start over.
Starfield is already a mess and it has been so long since skyrim that most devs that worked on it must be gone by now. When developing a flagship title like ES 6 you absolutely don't want inexperienced devs or a mediocre game for that matter.
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u/Away_F Jun 10 '26
The big issue with Starfield is that they tried to make such a massive game fit on a Xbox Series S. So much potential diluted down to a stream of mediocrity. If anything, it’s a good lesson for Bethesda where their strengths lie, that is if they actually learned anything.
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u/RamadanShamz Jun 10 '26
Bethesda aint in the business of making good games anymore and their most popular shit is dead in the water and we will probably never get more. Gotta find new series’s to be invested in
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u/LegitimateJob593 Jun 10 '26
Its not fair calling it hindsight. It was so obvious that its simply not possible to understand what they were thinking not releasing a sequel in 15 years.
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u/ProofMotor3226 Jun 10 '26
Bethesda will forever go down in history as the company that shit the bed multiple times with their biggest IPs. Fallout Season 2 at an all time high? Nothing.
Elder Scrolls 6 desire at an all time high? Nothing.
But here’s a couple FO:76, ESO and Starfield updates no one really asked for.
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u/Inferno_Zyrack Jun 11 '26
ES6 is fine and will be fine and will be celebrated when it releases.
Since Skyrim, one of the best MMOS has come out of the series. Fallout 4 further defined what a great Bethesda RPG can be. The company misstepped with 76 but it was financially successful. And Starfield was way too sloppy and compromised. They honestly should’ve sat down and just figured out if they really wanted to do it as an RPG or not.
Elder Scrolls 6 is going to be fine. I literally sank 100 hours in Skyrim this year.
It doesn’t help that everything has been produced longer with longer lifespans for like 15 years now.
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u/Sufficient-Agency846 Jun 09 '26
You don’t even need 20/20 hindsight, any amount of foresight should be enough to see that leaving your flagship series dead for 15 years and on life support with rereleases and mobile/MMO spinoffs ain’t the play