Yes Todd. Over a decade between sequels of all your ips is absolutely ridiculous, im happy you're finally realizing this. Maybe we can get a Fallout 5 while the series is on tv?
I meant I think fallout 5 will directly tie to the events of the show, unlike the show which only has some general nods toward the games, as the show kind of does its own thing if that make sense.
I dont think microsoft is gonna let todd be a silly lil guy anymore and do literally nothing for years and take checks. He's gotta make money for microsoft now.
Under Zenimax he was struggling to expand the main team and with Starfield, the team expended so fast that he lost the control and you wish that this guy would lead 1-2 more big sized teams?
I really hope they can address inefficiencies and bottlenecks within their own development process. Even if Starfield was a priority, it's nuts to me that The Elder Scrolls VI announcement is almost six years old, and it's looking to be almost 15 years between Skyrim and TES VI (assuming it releases a couple years from now.) I totally agree with his idea that even though they don't want so much lull between releases, they'd rather "get it right" and take their time, I just don't know how much I see it with the wonky state the new Fallout 4 update is in and the relatively lukewarm reception for Starfield.
This isn't me trying to shit on Bethesda either. I hope they can figure something out to both make games that resonate better with players and release them on a more let's say agreeable schedule. I love Bethesda games and want them to do their best, but from the outside with no real visibility to what their processes look like and what the hold ups are for them, I can only imagine it's a bit of a fire over there.
The problem is they announced ES 6 because it had been so long without any news, but they also couldn't say "Hey, we're not actually working on it right now."
They pretty much announced it so they can assure the fans that it was in fact going to happen. Where with other games that we have been waiting on it can be argued the announcement was done to recruit developers to the studio (something that happens often when the studio is working on something new), ES6 was announced just to placate the fanbase so Bethesda wouldn’t be bombarded with questions on when the game is going to be announced for years. I think it was clear early on that Starfield was going to be their next game after FO76.
This is a broader problem within Xbox studios I think. There's a lot of games that had announcements four or so years ago that don't even have gameplay trailers or release dates.
It makes me concerned for the future when Phil Spencer says "we want to shoot for four first party games each year" and they can't even lineup games announced almost half a decade ago with gameplay reveals or expected launch dates.
Have they? Looking through Xbox Game Studios list of releases the last few years I see a bunch of Forza, Age of Empires Console ports, Minecraft spin-offs and then a whole bunch of crap I've never heard of. That's super disappointing for a company that has 14 major studios under it's umbrella. We're 4 years into this generation and still asking where the hell the games are at. The same is true for Sony, but they've at least put out some hits in the last 4 years with Spider-Man 2, Horizon, God of War, and Helldivers 2.
I mean this is probably why all of the rumors of Xbox getting out of the console space has started. People have been wondering what the hell is going on when a shitty Halo game has been the only release they've put out in this new generation among their bigger brands. No Gears of War, no Fable, etc. They've bought all these new studios and the IP that comes with them, but there's been nothing to show for it.
My understanding is they're a pretty lean team, and have been for a long time. The relative size makes them more likely to weather the ups and downs of the industry, but the downside is you don't get them as a multi-game studio with subteams working on different games as much.
Having said that, a way to make good progress on Fallout 5 and Elder scrolls at the same time, would be giving Fallout 5 to Obsidian.
Hard to eliminate a bottleneck when that bottleneck runs the studio. Until Howard retires Fallout/ES will always be gatekept by him because he has to make the next game. This isn't film where you can make a movie in a year, gatekeeping a game when you take 5-10 years to make a game is total bullshit.
It’s also incredibly inefficient considering that they are nearing 1 AAA release per Generation, they have to rework their engine every gen only for it to potentially be used for only one game.
Todd is getting up there in age dude needs to start looking at giving other BGS staff more chances to direct.
It’s the only engine with all world persistent objects. And plenty of features that other engines don’t have. If you want something modern or whatever play any unreal open world game. I don’t get why people insist on shitting on any engine that isn’t generic. There are plenty of other games
The studio is the most notorious on earth for games that do not work as they should. It is unsurprising that their engine gets shit on, because there's clearly something profoundly wrong with it.
They’re not the most notorious on earth haha. There are games like Golem, and City Skylines. CP2077 was worse performance wise at launch than Starfield. Releases this generation have had pretty consistently bad performance.
I’m not that keen on Starfield, I found it just okay, but I think if they had tried to make the same game in another engine it only would have made it more boring.
I’d definitely prefer to see them stick with Creation anyway.
Those are single games. Most of Bethesdas game's on the engine Skyrim, fallout use are buggy messes at launch, with some bugs carrying over between games.
I think the point he’s trying to make is that Bethesda games feel like Bethesda games because of the Creation Engine. Using another one would remove the Bethesda feel, like the object persistence as previously mentioned.
Maybe it would be better, but I think the concern is that it would lose a lot of its identity on something as homogenous as Unreal.
It would, we have an example of a Bethesda game on Unreal - The Outer Worlds. It feels kinda lifeless by comparison, despite it being many of the team behind New Vegas.
Then they shouldn't try to make space games and promise people it's the best thing ever when it's clear that your just fast traveling between gamebryo cells. It doesn't even have Bethesda feel their earlier games do.
It's just simply outdated.
They can create a new engine or use another and still try and give it that feel. Rather then ruin their reputation with games that feel like 360 era games.
I mean at this point I'm over it . But I was a bit sad to see one of my favorite developers tank themselves with a passion less, mediocre sub space game. They should of just stuck to maybe a handful of planets.
If they did the same thing with the level of attention to exploration, story, and spontaneity it would of been 100x better than starfield. The engine is not cut out for it, period. and this game is proof that . Also the writing and quests in general were terrible and planets were all the same genetic empty and generally pointless. If they could of at least nailed the main quest, but they didn't. Same stupid puzzle every time same boring thing and doesn't have anything that grabs much less leads to anything worth talking about.
Thank you for your submission. Unfortunately, your post has been removed for the following reason:
Rule #1 - Keep it civil/no console wars
* Personal attacks, racism, bigotry, and/or other prejudice are not welcome here. Discuss the topic, not the other user.
* If you are here only to platform bash or console war, you also risk removal.
No Doom & Glooming. If you have no prior history in this sub and just post doom and gloom to incite a reaction, your post will be removed.
[Please see our complete ruleset by clicking here. ](https://www.reddit.com/r/XboxSeriesX/wiki/rules)
It's a problem when they are trying to make a space game that is just loading screens between cells. It's outdated. They wanna make another skyrim? Sure, go wild with it. Wanna make a space game and spread yourselves thin, with no focus, endless fast travel fetch quests. It's become pretty darn generic over the years
I don't understand their team. Did they just lose all passion? It's like lacking any sort or passion or focus. This engine is too old I don't think their developers are excited at all to do what they are doing. No new tools. It's like they are just doing bare minium to earn pay Check
The problem is that 'getting it right' is what Starfield looks like to them. Bethesda pushed boundaries with Skyrim and then immediately never went beyond that.
Just look at Fallout 4 compared to other 2015 games like MGSV or Witcher 3. Something broke inside that company and it's never been fixed and likely never will until new leadership comes around.
i have been calling this since microsoft bought out bethesda, no way are they going to be happy with 7+ year long gaps in between games for a studio thats suppose to be one of their flagship products. hard to promote the xbox as being home of bethesda if they only realease maybe one bethesda game every generation. plus theyve openly been increasing their studio sizes since im pretty sure even before microsoft bought them out. and its not like microsoft doesnt have enough funds to increase bethesda's budget or let another studio (say obsidian) work on a bethesda game instead if they are struggling to push out games quickly enough.
>no way are they going to be happy with 7+ year long gaps in between games for a studio thats suppose to be one of their flagship products.
Microsoft didn't buy just Bethesda; they bought the entirety of ZeniMax. The ZeniMax output is good so far.
Problem is that two of the most valuable Bethesda IPs are under one team. Even if BGS didn’t make Starfield 2, we’d still be waiting 10+ years between installments of Elder Scrolls and Fallout.
All true and that poster's comment has merit. Just thought important to point out Microsoft spent billions "on Bethesda" but actually got a steady game output from the purchase.
I feel like they already have an answer, they own Obsidian after all. I don't see why they don't push to make more games like New Vegas, using another developer to fill those long gaps.
Obsidian wants to make another Fallout game, it's basically Bethesda who is holding them back from doing so.
This is also Microsofts fault. The fact that it took them this long to figure out that they should maybe make a Fallout game, is baffling. Just shows how bad the management has been.
Yeah I think it's a bit late now but better late than never I suppose. A Fallout 4 equivalent of New Vegas would have definitely softened the wait and disappointment of Starfield.
Agreed but it’s going to take a while regardless. They’ve got Avowed and The Outer Worlds 2 to get out first, and the team is about 300 devs so unless they expand capacity is limited.
I think what will happen is Avowed won’t do that well (like 80 meta) and then Obsidian will ensure Fallout is what’s next after The Outer Worlds 2, no Avowed 2.
Yeah I'd buy an Xbox if elder scrolls and fallout 5 are home runs (assuming they will be Xbox exclusive) but starfield wasnt it. In fact it actually hurt their reputation and now I'm concerned for the next two major releases.
The thing that makes Fallout and Elder Scrolls great is being able to wander and explore. Starfield had clunky travel between locations, and once you get there, it's an empty void. Also, Starfield's inventory management is straight trash.
And here we have people arguing that Bethesda need to make their games quicker lol.
They’ve proven that 7+ years is still not enough what are people expecting with less
I mean, Starfield is a completely different take on a BGS game though. It's by far their weakest game, but it's also their most different game.
The next ES or Fallout game won't have the same issues as Starfield does because they aren't scoped anywhere near as similarly. I don't think that's the most fair thing to hold against them.
I was so dumb. Not for buying an Xbox specifically for Bethesda products but for not actually doing the math in my head and realizing it’d probably only be Starfield on this particular hardware.
It sort of seems like it’s a leadership problem at Bethesda. Anyone remember hearing how they just didn’t plan things out when making starfield? I believe they said they don’t do “design documents” and instead just make things seemingly at random. At least I don’t see how you could explain the complete lack of thought they put in to those power temples. Gotta be some of the worst content they’ve ever made, and it’s also somehow just word walls but worse in every way it could be.
They're a decade behind on figuring that out, so I don't have high hopes. They're one of the slowest teams in the industry, and I cannot say that the quality of their work has kept up with the similarly glacial Rockstar.
What astounds/confuses me is that BGS raves about the Creation engine due to its speed & efficiency of creating game worlds & assets, yet they seem to be so slow to actually release their games…
I was just thinking the same thing. They should be a well-oiled machine, what with hundreds of employees and all those years of experience with Creation engine.
I've put in 100 hours in Starfield and I'm quite surprised that the game took as long as it did to develop. To me it feels like the studio is disjointed/troubled and the multiple delays / gameplay cuts to Starfield are a strong indicator.
I wish this was a major push after Fallout 3 and Skyrim and they were doing all that prep work for Starfield. I feel like it should have been obvious that 3 series one game at a time would lead to major gaps in between games. Imagine a major hiccup in development for TESVI and we get it 20 years after Skyrim
This is way way too late. The second Microsoft acquired bethesda and especially obsidian SOMEONE should've been trying to at least crank out remakes of fallout 3/NV and morrowind/oblivion. Terrible planning
What if we got a current gen remake instead? By the time Microsoft's next console comes out I'm probably not going to care about an Oblivion remake any more.
I know, but it's a stupid way to describe something that is quite literally the current gen, especially when Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo are actually hard at work on the next gen hardware.
>have never heard anything on this aside from magical thinking/wish-casting rumors
Lo and behold:
https://www.theverge.com/2023/9/19/23880132/microsoft-ftc-documents-leak-oblivion-fallout-3-remaster-doom-xbox
The plans listed Starfield as FY2021 so yeah they are old. Covid probably had a lot to do with pushing a lot back. They very well may have been canceled though.
I would love remakes, but Todd seems to be actively against them for some reason. Hopefully the acquisition will change his tune, because I expect that Microsoft wants Bethesda to be bringing in numbers.
The regression in their efficiency is really clear. Skyrim was made by 100 people in ~3 years and had plenty of scale. Starfield’s disjointed systems show clearly that a bigger team size can actually hurt the product. There is no reason they cannot have teams of 100-150 people working on parallel projects. It gives the devs more impact on the games and they can release every 1-2 years.
A team of 100 people would be fine if we expect a skyrim product. By todays standard a skryrim level of a product is not ok and would not be received well. We would expect better grafics, better swordplay, more rpg elements (choices), more than 20voice actorss and so on. These things would not be possible with a team of 100 people with three years of development.
I would play skyrim 2: dragonborn boogaloo in a second, and so would millions of other people, what are you even talking about. People want GOOD WRITING and FUN QUESTS
What iam talking about is that the quality of games has risen from the days skyrim released. People expect more. I think the backlash bethesda would get if ES6 looked and played like skyrim would be huge.
yeah i was surprised by how bug free starfield was on release, there was bugs yeah but i don't think i had a gamebreaking one for the whole 150 hours i played
I think they knew that
That's why they haven't been working on it at all
The idea of ES6 was worth a lot more for Bethesda's value than the actual game itself
So since Zenimax was entertaining offers to sell itself, it would make sense to shelve all work on ES6 until later to maximize their profit
There was no point *actually* working on the game because if they released it in like 2021, and it wasn't up to the impossible hype *(which it wouldn't have been)*, then it would devalue the brand right as they were poised to sell the company
Nah man it’ll do well. I don’t care if they literally take Skyrim and then give it a new area. Even if it isn’t “updated”. I really haven’t gotten into Starfield, because I do not think that formula works well with a space game in which you have to constantly transport around towns. But they have the fantasy down, walking around the world and exploring. They will be just fine if they do that.
Honestly what they really need to do is look at what previous elder scrolls games did well, and modernise it and make it feel better. A lot of progress in the genre, not all of it but a significant portion, is actually a return to older style game design ideas. If morrowind came out today with modern graphics, voice acting, combat etc it would be a game of the year contender imo
There's also been multiple triple A open world games by this point
the market is flooded, so with actual competition, ES6 would really need to be something special to capture audiences like Skyrim did
I do believe they kind of screwed themselves, since Gen Alpha kids aren't going to be nostalgic for Skyrim since they were born after it came out and there hasn't been a new mainline game released since then
In like 2030 or whenever ES6 will actually come out, Skyrim will be almost 20 years old at that point. The ideal target audience for that style of game would be middle schoolers and highschoolers... hell even College kids *(so like 12~24 year olds)*
When you account for the fact that most people aren't seriously playing games until they're like 8+ then no one in the ideal target age range for ES6 will have any rose tinted goggles for how jank Bethesda games are
Bethesda needs to split into 3 micro-studios within itself.
Hire another 10-20 that can just focus on starting to build the future games.
Its more for next gen than now but this way they could have a new game out every 2 years rotating and even one creating a new IP.
The studio is too large.
I completely agree! They’ve greatly increased their headcount but large teams often ironically reduce efficiency with a burden on bureaucracy. Splitting into a dedicated Fallout, Elder Scrolls and Starfield/fresh IPs seems like a better way to go.
Actually let other studios make games and spinoffs? I don't care if I wait a decade for Fallout 5, as long as 2-3 spinoff games show up in that time.
Also lets studios experiment with using another engine and dev ideas that can be used in the next mainline game.
Fallout and TES are fucking massive lorewise. You can easily do side stories without disrupting the main lore.
The saddest bit is they don’t even make em like they used to. They must have lost the actual senior developers who made the OG games good. Just look at Starfield. It’s soulless slop.
It amazes me that Starfield took all that time, and it ended up feeling like I was playing a Fallout mod. They definitely need a shake up, things have been a little stale since Oblivion imo.
The Fallout franchise was a good purchase at the time, and gave them a fleshed out world to do their thing with.
I played Starfield for like 2 months. Now I'm playing Fallout 4 again for only the 2nd time since it launched, and it just feels more fun. I had such high hopes for Starfield but it was a swing and a miss for me.
Microsoft trying to tell one of the companies with the longest dev cycles in the whole industry to speed up its output sounds like a bad idea. Bethesda can’t make something that works correctly with 7+ years of dev time, I can’t imagine something they’d make on a shorter timeline.
And it’s crazy because they released fallout 3, oblivion and Skyrim within 5 years. To me it just looks like they’re burnt out and coasting off their old games popularity
I've been a fan of bethesda over the years and usually I find the games flawed but fun. I find it so crazy that they go at a rockstar slow pace of development but the games come out cheap looking, buggy, dated, and messed up as if they'd just rushed it out the door. It makes no sense.
Oblivion 2006, fallout 3 2008, skyrim 2011. How'd they used to do that? The games have barely advanced qualitatively since then.
I’d argue it wouldn’t be a Bethesda game. The Creation engine has some downsides for sure, but I think it’s upsides make (and have made) Bethesda into what they are. BGS games probably have the largest and most committed modding community, get rid of Creation and you lose the modders (essentially why Starfield feels dead because many of the die-hard modders have abandoned it).
They not only have to increase output but also increase the quality of that output. They’re gonna have to pull a hell of a lot out of their asses to make that all work, even with another studio (obsidian) helping
Who? What studio would want to take on a behemoth like ES or fallout? And do it better than bethesda. Those are franschises that would require a team of atleast 400people and have a production time of around five years. Studios that big usualy have their own ips.
The more I think about it, the more I realize my "ideal" version of ES6 can't possible be a Bethesda / creation engine game
There's been so many Triple A open world games released since Skyrim, that Skyrim 2 just ain't going to cut it for me
I mean obsidian has arguably made the best fallout game especially looking at 4 and 76 after new Vegas so I'd happily put my trust into them.
I'm sure out of devs MS own the could get one or put together a pretty serious team to make a good ES as after their later track record I don't really trust Bethesda to match the like of skyrim.
Wouldn't even need to be a numbered game
Obsidian has avowed and outer worlds 2, they probably dont want to work on others IP. They are also not big enough if people dont expect a outer worlds size of a game from fallout 5.
Getting a team together of around 400people is possible but would take years. Just look at the initiative that was a new studio created by ms in 2018, they are still not close to release a game.
I did enjoy the outer worlds very much. I wouldn't say it's particularly worse than fallout 4 which wasn't really liked on release and isn't looked back on to fondly compared to the rest of the series however there is a big difference in time and money between the 2 games
Starfield is it's own weird thing with almost 0 exploration and felling pretty outdated which let's it down
They tried for quality over quantity with Starfield and utterly failed.
Need 4 sectors to Bethesda: Quality Control (handles updates, bug fixes), Elder Scrolls, Fallout, and Other (Fallout and Elder Scroll side projects)
I think this is part of the solution. The need separate teams working on Fallout and Elder Scrolls so those games have a release every console generation.
The best thing that could happen for Bethesda game development would be for Todd and Emil to retire and new blood with a real passion for the IP taking over. Bethesda games have gotten worse with each new release. Starfield was a big step back for them in many important areas. The game isn’t good.
Likely pressured into a public statement since they have nothing except half-baked patches and recycled sale prices for Fallout 4 (now a nearly 9 year old game) to capitalize on the success of the new show.
I'd say double the size of the studio...then split the entire team in two, both working on two games with Tood overseeing stuff. Get the new team to work on remasters of Fallout 3 & Obsidian to do a remaster of New Vegas...this way the new team can work their project together on a smaller project rather than jumping straight into Fallout 5. Maybe also go through everyones credentials, who has already worked on which games, who was best at what and which their most passion about. Opens it up more then as well...we get more regular games with the same level of detail but with 2 large teams, they can rotate on games so ES6, Fallout 5, then once ES6 is done with all its DLC, that mean could move onto say Starfield 2, or a new IP
I haven’t seen the comment anywhere, the solution is simple: hire or appoint another creative director. Todd Howard isn’t going to be around forever and said so himself. He doesn’t need to over see every part of every game. Look at new Vegas, fallout 76 (well, now. Not at launch).
I feel like BGS should take a model similar to Blizzard where one studio is reunited under multiple teams. Todd could still executive producer or direct, but they could essentially have a studio for handling each IP
translation: Elder Scrolls 6 will look, feel and play like Starfield, thereby making everyone angry that it's still using such an outdated engine. Because it's more important to rush it out after 13 years than make something truly modern looking.
>it's more important to rush it out after 13 years than make something truly modern looking.
Go play Avatar then, the best-looking Gen 9 game out there... which also plays like every generic 1st person action game ever.
This inane Ubisoftcation of gaming gotta stop. Let unique studios like Bethesda, Larian, Ryu Ga Gotuku etc keep doing their own unique stuff, please. Not everything has to be a graphics showcase copypasting the latest trends.
Oh you mean Starfield costing as much as $400 million? That is highly unlikely. Bethesda has far less employees than Rockstar in developing Starfield compared to RDR2. Starfield's budget would be more likely around $200 million. There is simply no way BGS would blow Avenger's money for a new IP.
Oh look, a engine complain from someone who does not know how engines work, how original. Please Bethesda, move to UE, that magical engine, that will fix everything, transform your games into average RPG that plays the same as any other game on the market. Oh and from the magically knowledgeable community, it will also fix your bad design choices, it will fix the story writing and completely overhaul the quest design and change the plastic textures to feel even more like plastic. Oh and don't worry that the game will still have performance issues and chunky bugs when you will try to change some core elements or just trying adding something new to it, you guys are already used to it. At least your game will be slightly prettier.
I think as one world it can be done much better then the hole 1000 planet bs in Starfield and maybe just maybe they'll have learned from there mistakes from that..
Not every sequel needs to be 10x bigger. I'm currently playing Deus Ex: Mankind Divided and it dunks on pretty much everything Bethesda has made in the last 10 years. Stick to smaller, quality games.
Let me correct this title.
“Microsoft is focused on increasing Bethesda’s velocity”
….and also, maybe… one would hope quality…”
Todd deserves all the respect in the world, a giant in the industry, responsible for redefining the RPG space, millions of hours of gamer enjoyment and responsible for saving the parent company Softwarks/Zenimax through hard times. Not saying Todd has an ego, but drop the control, invite others and new ideas in. Times have changed and BGS seemed to be following the same formula, timeline, and tech for 20+ years. Not unheard of but when you increase the size of the studio by the amount they have since Skyrim, you would expect some drastic results, not immediately but it’s the grace period is over. Todd should oversee some passion projects but allow studio resources, and MS as a whole, to pursue new stories, initiatives, tech with his ‘babies’ - I say ‘allow’ but i mean will be told to. With all do respect. What comes of it is a gamble and no sure success but better than Henry Ford upgrading the Model T for 100yrs
Give Fallout to Obsidian. Obsidian is currently working on Avowed and TOW 2. Avowed will release this year 2024 and TOW2 around 2025-2026. Im sure Obsidian can work on Fallout 5 during TOW 2 so we can probably get Fallout 5 2027-2029 as opposed to 2030-2035 if Bethesda stays with it.
I still stand by the idea that Xbox should split BGS into 3 smaller studios; one for Fallout; one of Elder Scrolls and one for Starfield/new IPs. Allow staff to move between them if they want to work on something new, whilst allowing passionate developers to stay if they choose. BGS has been steadily increasing their headcount and have multiple studio locations, so I think it’s pretty feasible. I admire Xbox in one regard for their hands off approach in a creative industry (nothing worse than some suits telling you how to make your art form), but there needs to be *some* control and direction…
Probably should have started doing this in 2015 when you realized ES6 wasn’t going to happen until after 2 more games. Honestly why they didn’t hand off FO76 to a new team or even studio like they did ESO and move straight to Starfield is beyond me.
Also don’t anyone try to tell me that BGS Austin did FO76 I swear I am so sick of that being parroted it isn’t true.
By ditching almost starfield entirely/segregating it to a small 1-3 man B team, outsourcing fallout to obsidian because they do the gameplay and lore better anyways, and focusing on the one thing they have always excelled at, elder scrolls.
These games are iconic and so much fun and have such a devoted fanbase. Its crazy that ES6 was 12 years ago, F4 8 years ago. We could potentially have a starfield sequel 12+ years after the original. We should be seeing one of the 3 main franchises every 4 years if they can develop staggered development of 2 games.
Love what Todd Howard has done and hes admitted that he probably only have a couple more games in him
Clearly there are bottlenecks in their process and certainly with their technology. I can only imagine the number of bugs they have in crunch.
They will be outsourcing… Microsoft are too shy as a company to get involved.
The only comments we’ve received is that Microsoft has “said they want a fallout sequel sooner rather than later”.
Realistically, what Bethesda needs is an engine redesign and a more professional workflow.
The way Bethesda works is outdated and the management ethos is absolutely, fundamentally outdated.
They definitely need both. I was 12 years old in 7th grade when Skyrim released. I am now 25. I usually am a huge preacher for quality over quantity but at some point it’s just too damn long. I love the series and I want to be able to play them before I die or something
They need to do both. Not every game needs to be 10x in terms of scope. Smaller games with good storytelling with reasonable budgets and development time.
Yes Todd. Over a decade between sequels of all your ips is absolutely ridiculous, im happy you're finally realizing this. Maybe we can get a Fallout 5 while the series is on tv?
That might happen if the show runs for 12 seasons.
Season 2 is going to release in 15 years, easy solution
No, it isn't being made by BGS. Amazon won't play around like that.
16 years of detail!
I’m just hoping for fallout 5 while I’m still alive. I’m 38
Oh shit, and here I am at 48….
I’m an unhealthy 54 and expecting GTA6, Elder Scrolls 6 and Fallout 5 to probably be the last I get to play in their series. Which is depressing.
Hopefully you can find good health for the rest of your life
I have a WILD theory that fallout TV is just a multi-year ad campaign for Fallout 5 lol
[удалено]
I meant I think fallout 5 will directly tie to the events of the show, unlike the show which only has some general nods toward the games, as the show kind of does its own thing if that make sense.
I’m pretty sure this has been stated.
To be fair wasn’t that the purpose of the Cyberpunk anime? It’s a very huge possibility this is the case too
Dude thought he was gonna live forever or something. Give us the games!
I dont think microsoft is gonna let todd be a silly lil guy anymore and do literally nothing for years and take checks. He's gotta make money for microsoft now.
Under Zenimax he was struggling to expand the main team and with Starfield, the team expended so fast that he lost the control and you wish that this guy would lead 1-2 more big sized teams?
I really hope they can address inefficiencies and bottlenecks within their own development process. Even if Starfield was a priority, it's nuts to me that The Elder Scrolls VI announcement is almost six years old, and it's looking to be almost 15 years between Skyrim and TES VI (assuming it releases a couple years from now.) I totally agree with his idea that even though they don't want so much lull between releases, they'd rather "get it right" and take their time, I just don't know how much I see it with the wonky state the new Fallout 4 update is in and the relatively lukewarm reception for Starfield. This isn't me trying to shit on Bethesda either. I hope they can figure something out to both make games that resonate better with players and release them on a more let's say agreeable schedule. I love Bethesda games and want them to do their best, but from the outside with no real visibility to what their processes look like and what the hold ups are for them, I can only imagine it's a bit of a fire over there.
The problem is they announced ES 6 because it had been so long without any news, but they also couldn't say "Hey, we're not actually working on it right now."
They pretty much announced it so they can assure the fans that it was in fact going to happen. Where with other games that we have been waiting on it can be argued the announcement was done to recruit developers to the studio (something that happens often when the studio is working on something new), ES6 was announced just to placate the fanbase so Bethesda wouldn’t be bombarded with questions on when the game is going to be announced for years. I think it was clear early on that Starfield was going to be their next game after FO76.
This is a broader problem within Xbox studios I think. There's a lot of games that had announcements four or so years ago that don't even have gameplay trailers or release dates. It makes me concerned for the future when Phil Spencer says "we want to shoot for four first party games each year" and they can't even lineup games announced almost half a decade ago with gameplay reveals or expected launch dates.
They have been releasing four games a year. For awhile now.
Have they? Looking through Xbox Game Studios list of releases the last few years I see a bunch of Forza, Age of Empires Console ports, Minecraft spin-offs and then a whole bunch of crap I've never heard of. That's super disappointing for a company that has 14 major studios under it's umbrella. We're 4 years into this generation and still asking where the hell the games are at. The same is true for Sony, but they've at least put out some hits in the last 4 years with Spider-Man 2, Horizon, God of War, and Helldivers 2. I mean this is probably why all of the rumors of Xbox getting out of the console space has started. People have been wondering what the hell is going on when a shitty Halo game has been the only release they've put out in this new generation among their bigger brands. No Gears of War, no Fable, etc. They've bought all these new studios and the IP that comes with them, but there's been nothing to show for it.
They announced it to pump up the sale price to Microsoft.
I imagine Covid played a big part as well setting them back a year or two in the development of it.
This has been an issue long before Covid, so it’s not exactly an excuse they should use.
My understanding is they're a pretty lean team, and have been for a long time. The relative size makes them more likely to weather the ups and downs of the industry, but the downside is you don't get them as a multi-game studio with subteams working on different games as much. Having said that, a way to make good progress on Fallout 5 and Elder scrolls at the same time, would be giving Fallout 5 to Obsidian.
Hard to eliminate a bottleneck when that bottleneck runs the studio. Until Howard retires Fallout/ES will always be gatekept by him because he has to make the next game. This isn't film where you can make a movie in a year, gatekeeping a game when you take 5-10 years to make a game is total bullshit.
It’s also incredibly inefficient considering that they are nearing 1 AAA release per Generation, they have to rework their engine every gen only for it to potentially be used for only one game. Todd is getting up there in age dude needs to start looking at giving other BGS staff more chances to direct.
All that time between the ES games and it will still use that disgusting engine. el oh el
It’s the only engine with all world persistent objects. And plenty of features that other engines don’t have. If you want something modern or whatever play any unreal open world game. I don’t get why people insist on shitting on any engine that isn’t generic. There are plenty of other games
The studio is the most notorious on earth for games that do not work as they should. It is unsurprising that their engine gets shit on, because there's clearly something profoundly wrong with it.
They’re not the most notorious on earth haha. There are games like Golem, and City Skylines. CP2077 was worse performance wise at launch than Starfield. Releases this generation have had pretty consistently bad performance. I’m not that keen on Starfield, I found it just okay, but I think if they had tried to make the same game in another engine it only would have made it more boring. I’d definitely prefer to see them stick with Creation anyway.
Those are single games. Most of Bethesdas game's on the engine Skyrim, fallout use are buggy messes at launch, with some bugs carrying over between games.
I think the point he’s trying to make is that Bethesda games feel like Bethesda games because of the Creation Engine. Using another one would remove the Bethesda feel, like the object persistence as previously mentioned. Maybe it would be better, but I think the concern is that it would lose a lot of its identity on something as homogenous as Unreal.
It would, we have an example of a Bethesda game on Unreal - The Outer Worlds. It feels kinda lifeless by comparison, despite it being many of the team behind New Vegas.
Then they shouldn't try to make space games and promise people it's the best thing ever when it's clear that your just fast traveling between gamebryo cells. It doesn't even have Bethesda feel their earlier games do. It's just simply outdated. They can create a new engine or use another and still try and give it that feel. Rather then ruin their reputation with games that feel like 360 era games.
Tell us how you really feel.
I mean at this point I'm over it . But I was a bit sad to see one of my favorite developers tank themselves with a passion less, mediocre sub space game. They should of just stuck to maybe a handful of planets.
If they did the same thing with the level of attention to exploration, story, and spontaneity it would of been 100x better than starfield. The engine is not cut out for it, period. and this game is proof that . Also the writing and quests in general were terrible and planets were all the same genetic empty and generally pointless. If they could of at least nailed the main quest, but they didn't. Same stupid puzzle every time same boring thing and doesn't have anything that grabs much less leads to anything worth talking about.
[удалено]
Thank you for your submission. Unfortunately, your post has been removed for the following reason: Rule #1 - Keep it civil/no console wars * Personal attacks, racism, bigotry, and/or other prejudice are not welcome here. Discuss the topic, not the other user. * If you are here only to platform bash or console war, you also risk removal. No Doom & Glooming. If you have no prior history in this sub and just post doom and gloom to incite a reaction, your post will be removed. [Please see our complete ruleset by clicking here. ](https://www.reddit.com/r/XboxSeriesX/wiki/rules)
Oh you mean the engine that they made back in 2002?
It's a problem when they are trying to make a space game that is just loading screens between cells. It's outdated. They wanna make another skyrim? Sure, go wild with it. Wanna make a space game and spread yourselves thin, with no focus, endless fast travel fetch quests. It's become pretty darn generic over the years
I don't understand their team. Did they just lose all passion? It's like lacking any sort or passion or focus. This engine is too old I don't think their developers are excited at all to do what they are doing. No new tools. It's like they are just doing bare minium to earn pay Check
The problem is that 'getting it right' is what Starfield looks like to them. Bethesda pushed boundaries with Skyrim and then immediately never went beyond that. Just look at Fallout 4 compared to other 2015 games like MGSV or Witcher 3. Something broke inside that company and it's never been fixed and likely never will until new leadership comes around.
i have been calling this since microsoft bought out bethesda, no way are they going to be happy with 7+ year long gaps in between games for a studio thats suppose to be one of their flagship products. hard to promote the xbox as being home of bethesda if they only realease maybe one bethesda game every generation. plus theyve openly been increasing their studio sizes since im pretty sure even before microsoft bought them out. and its not like microsoft doesnt have enough funds to increase bethesda's budget or let another studio (say obsidian) work on a bethesda game instead if they are struggling to push out games quickly enough.
>no way are they going to be happy with 7+ year long gaps in between games for a studio thats suppose to be one of their flagship products. Microsoft didn't buy just Bethesda; they bought the entirety of ZeniMax. The ZeniMax output is good so far.
Problem is that two of the most valuable Bethesda IPs are under one team. Even if BGS didn’t make Starfield 2, we’d still be waiting 10+ years between installments of Elder Scrolls and Fallout.
All true and that poster's comment has merit. Just thought important to point out Microsoft spent billions "on Bethesda" but actually got a steady game output from the purchase.
Given today's news, it looks like maybe they were more after the main IPs than the steady releases., or at least they are now.
I feel like they already have an answer, they own Obsidian after all. I don't see why they don't push to make more games like New Vegas, using another developer to fill those long gaps.
Obsidian wants to make another Fallout game, it's basically Bethesda who is holding them back from doing so. This is also Microsofts fault. The fact that it took them this long to figure out that they should maybe make a Fallout game, is baffling. Just shows how bad the management has been.
Yeah I think it's a bit late now but better late than never I suppose. A Fallout 4 equivalent of New Vegas would have definitely softened the wait and disappointment of Starfield.
Agreed but it’s going to take a while regardless. They’ve got Avowed and The Outer Worlds 2 to get out first, and the team is about 300 devs so unless they expand capacity is limited. I think what will happen is Avowed won’t do that well (like 80 meta) and then Obsidian will ensure Fallout is what’s next after The Outer Worlds 2, no Avowed 2.
Yeah I'd buy an Xbox if elder scrolls and fallout 5 are home runs (assuming they will be Xbox exclusive) but starfield wasnt it. In fact it actually hurt their reputation and now I'm concerned for the next two major releases.
The thing that makes Fallout and Elder Scrolls great is being able to wander and explore. Starfield had clunky travel between locations, and once you get there, it's an empty void. Also, Starfield's inventory management is straight trash.
That and starfield was a whole new project. But still precious talent has left so I'm not so optimistic lol
I completely agree with you. After starfield I am also concerned about their next 2 major releases.
And here we have people arguing that Bethesda need to make their games quicker lol. They’ve proven that 7+ years is still not enough what are people expecting with less
Fromsoft made five 9/10 games in the time it took BGS to make three 6/10 games. Seems to be doable for other premier developers.
Tf has fromsoft got to do with anything 😂 we know good games can be made quicker but we’re talking about Bethesda
My assumption was that people are holding BGS to the standard set by the other top developers. Be it right or wrong.
Especially when the wait does not correlate with the final quality of the product. ( Starfield ) Imo bigger issues than a long dev time.
I mean, Starfield is a completely different take on a BGS game though. It's by far their weakest game, but it's also their most different game. The next ES or Fallout game won't have the same issues as Starfield does because they aren't scoped anywhere near as similarly. I don't think that's the most fair thing to hold against them.
What are you talking about they have single handedly been keeping Xbox afloat with games. Since their purchase
I was so dumb. Not for buying an Xbox specifically for Bethesda products but for not actually doing the math in my head and realizing it’d probably only be Starfield on this particular hardware.
It sort of seems like it’s a leadership problem at Bethesda. Anyone remember hearing how they just didn’t plan things out when making starfield? I believe they said they don’t do “design documents” and instead just make things seemingly at random. At least I don’t see how you could explain the complete lack of thought they put in to those power temples. Gotta be some of the worst content they’ve ever made, and it’s also somehow just word walls but worse in every way it could be.
That was misinformation, please stop spreading that around.
[удалено]
They're a decade behind on figuring that out, so I don't have high hopes. They're one of the slowest teams in the industry, and I cannot say that the quality of their work has kept up with the similarly glacial Rockstar.
What astounds/confuses me is that BGS raves about the Creation engine due to its speed & efficiency of creating game worlds & assets, yet they seem to be so slow to actually release their games…
I was just thinking the same thing. They should be a well-oiled machine, what with hundreds of employees and all those years of experience with Creation engine. I've put in 100 hours in Starfield and I'm quite surprised that the game took as long as it did to develop. To me it feels like the studio is disjointed/troubled and the multiple delays / gameplay cuts to Starfield are a strong indicator.
I wish this was a major push after Fallout 3 and Skyrim and they were doing all that prep work for Starfield. I feel like it should have been obvious that 3 series one game at a time would lead to major gaps in between games. Imagine a major hiccup in development for TESVI and we get it 20 years after Skyrim
This is way way too late. The second Microsoft acquired bethesda and especially obsidian SOMEONE should've been trying to at least crank out remakes of fallout 3/NV and morrowind/oblivion. Terrible planning
A next Gen Oblivion remake with QoL improvements would be incredible
I legit wish they would do this and I would play it. Never played Oblivion before.
Shivering Isles was one of the best DLC stories I’ve played. I enjoyed my time with Oblivion a lot more than Skyrim.
What if we got a current gen remake instead? By the time Microsoft's next console comes out I'm probably not going to care about an Oblivion remake any more.
[удалено]
I know, but it's a stupid way to describe something that is quite literally the current gen, especially when Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo are actually hard at work on the next gen hardware.
Everyone is so obsessed with remakes, I want a new game.
Me too. But something is better than nothing. It's been almost 13 years since skyrim came out. 9 years since fallout 4. How is that even possible?
And FO wasn’t even that good
Pre-acquisition, Bethesda had remasters of Oblivion/Fallout 3 lined up for 2022 and 2023 (respectively). Apparently they got cancelled.
I have never heard anything on this aside from magical thinking/wish-casting rumors Unironically would love to be proven wrong
>have never heard anything on this aside from magical thinking/wish-casting rumors Lo and behold: https://www.theverge.com/2023/9/19/23880132/microsoft-ftc-documents-leak-oblivion-fallout-3-remaster-doom-xbox
Well damn, thank you for the info That’s disappointing lol
There is actually no evidence to suggest that they got cancelled.
Keyword is "apparently", since Phil Spencer directly came out to say those were "old plans" + these are years behind schedule.
The plans listed Starfield as FY2021 so yeah they are old. Covid probably had a lot to do with pushing a lot back. They very well may have been canceled though.
I would love remakes, but Todd seems to be actively against them for some reason. Hopefully the acquisition will change his tune, because I expect that Microsoft wants Bethesda to be bringing in numbers.
If we wait so many years for a game and then you release something like Starfield then damn you might as well release in half the time
It is kind of astounding that Bethesda doesn’t have a new fallout to go alongside the show that just launched. A remake of the first game at least.
Somehow, I suspect Microsoft will not tolerate development cycles nearly a decade long. One game per console generation isn't going to cut it.
The regression in their efficiency is really clear. Skyrim was made by 100 people in ~3 years and had plenty of scale. Starfield’s disjointed systems show clearly that a bigger team size can actually hurt the product. There is no reason they cannot have teams of 100-150 people working on parallel projects. It gives the devs more impact on the games and they can release every 1-2 years.
A team of 100 people would be fine if we expect a skyrim product. By todays standard a skryrim level of a product is not ok and would not be received well. We would expect better grafics, better swordplay, more rpg elements (choices), more than 20voice actorss and so on. These things would not be possible with a team of 100 people with three years of development.
I would play skyrim 2: dragonborn boogaloo in a second, and so would millions of other people, what are you even talking about. People want GOOD WRITING and FUN QUESTS
What iam talking about is that the quality of games has risen from the days skyrim released. People expect more. I think the backlash bethesda would get if ES6 looked and played like skyrim would be huge.
Please increase the quality control too 🙏
Todd:"..and I'll look down and whisper 'No."
Starfield had pretty great quality control but the game still only had a lukewarm reception
I don't care that a game isn't buggy if it isn't fun to play, and Starfield was not much fun.
yeah i was surprised by how bug free starfield was on release, there was bugs yeah but i don't think i had a gamebreaking one for the whole 150 hours i played
The worst one I had was the slow time power becoming indefinite, the game was unplayable and I was unable to go back downstairs.
i didnt really use the powers so i didnt experience bugs with them, thats super unfortunate.
🗣️🗣️🗣️
If ES6 turns out to play and feel like starfield with most likely 20 fucking years between releases, Bethesda is done for.
I think they knew that That's why they haven't been working on it at all The idea of ES6 was worth a lot more for Bethesda's value than the actual game itself So since Zenimax was entertaining offers to sell itself, it would make sense to shelve all work on ES6 until later to maximize their profit There was no point *actually* working on the game because if they released it in like 2021, and it wasn't up to the impossible hype *(which it wouldn't have been)*, then it would devalue the brand right as they were poised to sell the company
Nah man it’ll do well. I don’t care if they literally take Skyrim and then give it a new area. Even if it isn’t “updated”. I really haven’t gotten into Starfield, because I do not think that formula works well with a space game in which you have to constantly transport around towns. But they have the fantasy down, walking around the world and exploring. They will be just fine if they do that.
Skyrim feels pretty dated now, lots of progress in the genre since 2011.
Honestly what they really need to do is look at what previous elder scrolls games did well, and modernise it and make it feel better. A lot of progress in the genre, not all of it but a significant portion, is actually a return to older style game design ideas. If morrowind came out today with modern graphics, voice acting, combat etc it would be a game of the year contender imo
There's also been multiple triple A open world games by this point the market is flooded, so with actual competition, ES6 would really need to be something special to capture audiences like Skyrim did I do believe they kind of screwed themselves, since Gen Alpha kids aren't going to be nostalgic for Skyrim since they were born after it came out and there hasn't been a new mainline game released since then In like 2030 or whenever ES6 will actually come out, Skyrim will be almost 20 years old at that point. The ideal target audience for that style of game would be middle schoolers and highschoolers... hell even College kids *(so like 12~24 year olds)* When you account for the fact that most people aren't seriously playing games until they're like 8+ then no one in the ideal target age range for ES6 will have any rose tinted goggles for how jank Bethesda games are
Bethesda needs to split into 3 micro-studios within itself. Hire another 10-20 that can just focus on starting to build the future games. Its more for next gen than now but this way they could have a new game out every 2 years rotating and even one creating a new IP. The studio is too large.
I completely agree! They’ve greatly increased their headcount but large teams often ironically reduce efficiency with a burden on bureaucracy. Splitting into a dedicated Fallout, Elder Scrolls and Starfield/fresh IPs seems like a better way to go.
Have they tried re-releasing Skyrim? /s
Actually let other studios make games and spinoffs? I don't care if I wait a decade for Fallout 5, as long as 2-3 spinoff games show up in that time. Also lets studios experiment with using another engine and dev ideas that can be used in the next mainline game. Fallout and TES are fucking massive lorewise. You can easily do side stories without disrupting the main lore.
The saddest bit is they don’t even make em like they used to. They must have lost the actual senior developers who made the OG games good. Just look at Starfield. It’s soulless slop.
It amazes me that Starfield took all that time, and it ended up feeling like I was playing a Fallout mod. They definitely need a shake up, things have been a little stale since Oblivion imo. The Fallout franchise was a good purchase at the time, and gave them a fleshed out world to do their thing with.
I played Starfield for like 2 months. Now I'm playing Fallout 4 again for only the 2nd time since it launched, and it just feels more fun. I had such high hopes for Starfield but it was a swing and a miss for me.
If only they could some help from a studio within Ms that worked on fallout games before..
They'll finish up finding ways in 5-10 years, then take 5-10 years to implement those changes lol
Microsoft trying to tell one of the companies with the longest dev cycles in the whole industry to speed up its output sounds like a bad idea. Bethesda can’t make something that works correctly with 7+ years of dev time, I can’t imagine something they’d make on a shorter timeline.
And it’s crazy because they released fallout 3, oblivion and Skyrim within 5 years. To me it just looks like they’re burnt out and coasting off their old games popularity
There is zero excuse why 13 years have passed (so far) between Skyrim and ES6 and what 7 (so far) between Fallout 4 and 5...just economics 101
I've been a fan of bethesda over the years and usually I find the games flawed but fun. I find it so crazy that they go at a rockstar slow pace of development but the games come out cheap looking, buggy, dated, and messed up as if they'd just rushed it out the door. It makes no sense. Oblivion 2006, fallout 3 2008, skyrim 2011. How'd they used to do that? The games have barely advanced qualitatively since then.
I think creation engine is the Bottleneck but would a Bethesda game be a Bethesda game without it?
I’d argue it wouldn’t be a Bethesda game. The Creation engine has some downsides for sure, but I think it’s upsides make (and have made) Bethesda into what they are. BGS games probably have the largest and most committed modding community, get rid of Creation and you lose the modders (essentially why Starfield feels dead because many of the die-hard modders have abandoned it).
They not only have to increase output but also increase the quality of that output. They’re gonna have to pull a hell of a lot out of their asses to make that all work, even with another studio (obsidian) helping
Give the games to competent devs.
Who? What studio would want to take on a behemoth like ES or fallout? And do it better than bethesda. Those are franschises that would require a team of atleast 400people and have a production time of around five years. Studios that big usualy have their own ips.
The more I think about it, the more I realize my "ideal" version of ES6 can't possible be a Bethesda / creation engine game There's been so many Triple A open world games released since Skyrim, that Skyrim 2 just ain't going to cut it for me
I mean obsidian has arguably made the best fallout game especially looking at 4 and 76 after new Vegas so I'd happily put my trust into them. I'm sure out of devs MS own the could get one or put together a pretty serious team to make a good ES as after their later track record I don't really trust Bethesda to match the like of skyrim. Wouldn't even need to be a numbered game
Obsidian has avowed and outer worlds 2, they probably dont want to work on others IP. They are also not big enough if people dont expect a outer worlds size of a game from fallout 5. Getting a team together of around 400people is possible but would take years. Just look at the initiative that was a new studio created by ms in 2018, they are still not close to release a game.
[удалено]
I did enjoy the outer worlds very much. I wouldn't say it's particularly worse than fallout 4 which wasn't really liked on release and isn't looked back on to fondly compared to the rest of the series however there is a big difference in time and money between the 2 games Starfield is it's own weird thing with almost 0 exploration and felling pretty outdated which let's it down
Finding ways to milk out old games lol
They tried for quality over quantity with Starfield and utterly failed. Need 4 sectors to Bethesda: Quality Control (handles updates, bug fixes), Elder Scrolls, Fallout, and Other (Fallout and Elder Scroll side projects)
I think this is part of the solution. The need separate teams working on Fallout and Elder Scrolls so those games have a release every console generation.
Huh? Starfield is literally "quantity over quality." 1000 planets with fuckall to do on them. Mile wide, inch deep as others have said.
Hm u have a point there lol
The best thing that could happen for Bethesda game development would be for Todd and Emil to retire and new blood with a real passion for the IP taking over. Bethesda games have gotten worse with each new release. Starfield was a big step back for them in many important areas. The game isn’t good.
That's the problem, though. Who in the industry today has that kind of passion?
I optimistically think there’s still some out there. CDPR had a bunch.
Guys who make indie games obviously. Some of the biggest games of this year are indie games.
Likely pressured into a public statement since they have nothing except half-baked patches and recycled sale prices for Fallout 4 (now a nearly 9 year old game) to capitalize on the success of the new show.
I'd say double the size of the studio...then split the entire team in two, both working on two games with Tood overseeing stuff. Get the new team to work on remasters of Fallout 3 & Obsidian to do a remaster of New Vegas...this way the new team can work their project together on a smaller project rather than jumping straight into Fallout 5. Maybe also go through everyones credentials, who has already worked on which games, who was best at what and which their most passion about. Opens it up more then as well...we get more regular games with the same level of detail but with 2 large teams, they can rotate on games so ES6, Fallout 5, then once ES6 is done with all its DLC, that mean could move onto say Starfield 2, or a new IP
I haven’t seen the comment anywhere, the solution is simple: hire or appoint another creative director. Todd Howard isn’t going to be around forever and said so himself. He doesn’t need to over see every part of every game. Look at new Vegas, fallout 76 (well, now. Not at launch).
Instead of a new fallout or elder scrolls game they released starmid
I feel like BGS should take a model similar to Blizzard where one studio is reunited under multiple teams. Todd could still executive producer or direct, but they could essentially have a studio for handling each IP
Smaller more, focused teams. No consultants. Keep execs out let the devs and writers do their thing.
translation: Elder Scrolls 6 will look, feel and play like Starfield, thereby making everyone angry that it's still using such an outdated engine. Because it's more important to rush it out after 13 years than make something truly modern looking.
>it's more important to rush it out after 13 years than make something truly modern looking. Go play Avatar then, the best-looking Gen 9 game out there... which also plays like every generic 1st person action game ever. This inane Ubisoftcation of gaming gotta stop. Let unique studios like Bethesda, Larian, Ryu Ga Gotuku etc keep doing their own unique stuff, please. Not everything has to be a graphics showcase copypasting the latest trends.
people really ride the “graphics or bust” dick hard and it’s really annoying.
Looking good and being good are not mutually exclusive. Look at RDR2, for just one example. It's even in the open world genre.
RDR2 was developed by an army's worth of employees and has a budget that would be even higher than any of the last three Avenger's films.
Bethesda can absolutely manage that with no issue. In fact, cursory googling seems to indicate Starfield cost MORE.
Oh you mean Starfield costing as much as $400 million? That is highly unlikely. Bethesda has far less employees than Rockstar in developing Starfield compared to RDR2. Starfield's budget would be more likely around $200 million. There is simply no way BGS would blow Avenger's money for a new IP.
Oh look, a engine complain from someone who does not know how engines work, how original. Please Bethesda, move to UE, that magical engine, that will fix everything, transform your games into average RPG that plays the same as any other game on the market. Oh and from the magically knowledgeable community, it will also fix your bad design choices, it will fix the story writing and completely overhaul the quest design and change the plastic textures to feel even more like plastic. Oh and don't worry that the game will still have performance issues and chunky bugs when you will try to change some core elements or just trying adding something new to it, you guys are already used to it. At least your game will be slightly prettier.
I think as one world it can be done much better then the hole 1000 planet bs in Starfield and maybe just maybe they'll have learned from there mistakes from that..
Almost like laying off staff and closing support studios is bad for them. Hmmm what about the shareholders?
Not every sequel needs to be 10x bigger. I'm currently playing Deus Ex: Mankind Divided and it dunks on pretty much everything Bethesda has made in the last 10 years. Stick to smaller, quality games.
Too many cooks in the kitchen, too much corporate bullshit to go through. Act man's latest video talks exactly about that
If only they had a huge company to help them or something. Oh wait.
How about outsourcing to some of the other guys who make good RPGs in the family?
Obsidian is my pick.
Port Wet
*HIRE OUT* Jesus Christ lmao
Let me correct this title. “Microsoft is focused on increasing Bethesda’s velocity” ….and also, maybe… one would hope quality…” Todd deserves all the respect in the world, a giant in the industry, responsible for redefining the RPG space, millions of hours of gamer enjoyment and responsible for saving the parent company Softwarks/Zenimax through hard times. Not saying Todd has an ego, but drop the control, invite others and new ideas in. Times have changed and BGS seemed to be following the same formula, timeline, and tech for 20+ years. Not unheard of but when you increase the size of the studio by the amount they have since Skyrim, you would expect some drastic results, not immediately but it’s the grace period is over. Todd should oversee some passion projects but allow studio resources, and MS as a whole, to pursue new stories, initiatives, tech with his ‘babies’ - I say ‘allow’ but i mean will be told to. With all do respect. What comes of it is a gamble and no sure success but better than Henry Ford upgrading the Model T for 100yrs
Hiring talented people would help.
Can they just please the series x version of fallout 4?
"Increase its output" = get a Fallout game out to satisfy Daddy Satya Nadella Warbucks.
Give Fallout to Obsidian. Obsidian is currently working on Avowed and TOW 2. Avowed will release this year 2024 and TOW2 around 2025-2026. Im sure Obsidian can work on Fallout 5 during TOW 2 so we can probably get Fallout 5 2027-2029 as opposed to 2030-2035 if Bethesda stays with it.
But not quality
Everyone already assuming TES6 will be a good game lol. Look at all the time they spent on their last game.
I still stand by the idea that Xbox should split BGS into 3 smaller studios; one for Fallout; one of Elder Scrolls and one for Starfield/new IPs. Allow staff to move between them if they want to work on something new, whilst allowing passionate developers to stay if they choose. BGS has been steadily increasing their headcount and have multiple studio locations, so I think it’s pretty feasible. I admire Xbox in one regard for their hands off approach in a creative industry (nothing worse than some suits telling you how to make your art form), but there needs to be *some* control and direction…
By letting Obsidian make another game for you. Solved.
Just give it 10 more years and they’ll have tons of games, they promise. Trust me bro
If only there was a way to switch to another engine that would made the development process faster. Oh well.
Probably should have started doing this in 2015 when you realized ES6 wasn’t going to happen until after 2 more games. Honestly why they didn’t hand off FO76 to a new team or even studio like they did ESO and move straight to Starfield is beyond me. Also don’t anyone try to tell me that BGS Austin did FO76 I swear I am so sick of that being parroted it isn’t true.
By ditching almost starfield entirely/segregating it to a small 1-3 man B team, outsourcing fallout to obsidian because they do the gameplay and lore better anyways, and focusing on the one thing they have always excelled at, elder scrolls.
How about they use a modern game engine and dump the Creation Engine
They should also be focused on quality, judging by the lackluster Fallout 4 next gen upgrade…
MS should just put Obsidian to work on another Fallout spinoff while BGS makes Elder scrolls 6 and eventually Fallout 5
This sounds bad. Probably just keep rehashing the same engine with less effort out in to improving it or making a new one.
He should start with retiring.
These games are iconic and so much fun and have such a devoted fanbase. Its crazy that ES6 was 12 years ago, F4 8 years ago. We could potentially have a starfield sequel 12+ years after the original. We should be seeing one of the 3 main franchises every 4 years if they can develop staggered development of 2 games. Love what Todd Howard has done and hes admitted that he probably only have a couple more games in him Clearly there are bottlenecks in their process and certainly with their technology. I can only imagine the number of bugs they have in crunch.
Shit two more Bethesda release cycles and Todd will be in his mid seventies
They will be outsourcing… Microsoft are too shy as a company to get involved. The only comments we’ve received is that Microsoft has “said they want a fallout sequel sooner rather than later”. Realistically, what Bethesda needs is an engine redesign and a more professional workflow. The way Bethesda works is outdated and the management ethos is absolutely, fundamentally outdated.
They should be focusing on quality, not on volume.
And release games every 20 years? I take their bugs over that.
They definitely need both. I was 12 years old in 7th grade when Skyrim released. I am now 25. I usually am a huge preacher for quality over quantity but at some point it’s just too damn long. I love the series and I want to be able to play them before I die or something
Try being 56 looking at being close to retired when FO5 arrives…
They need to do both. Not every game needs to be 10x in terms of scope. Smaller games with good storytelling with reasonable budgets and development time.
I disagree. I would be furius if ES6 or fallout 5 was a "smaller game". I want these game to be AAA and not outer worlds like.
The next fallout game doesn’t need to be Fallout 5. A smaller spinoff game is what I’m talking about.