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[Opinion piece] Starfield Killed My Hype For The Elder Scrolls 6
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this post was submitted on 25 Feb 2024
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To be honest, Bethesda’s best work is probably behind them. They will sell a few more games based on brand recognition and because we are suckers, but I don’t expect much. I’m old enough to have seen many of my favorite developers go through this. It’s difficult to have overwhelming success and keep knocking it out of the park with every release. Expectations for something better than the last thing are so high, the pressure to do something new, the culture change that comes with huge growth, and they eventually lose that magic that captured us in the first place.
I'll preface this by saying that in no way do I expect that ES6 will shine more than Starfield and nothing I'm about to say should be construed as such.
I personally think that Starfield isn't a good representation of what modern Bethesda will do with ES6. Starfield is the first time any of the major players had been involved in a totally new IP.
Skyrim was mechanically good enough, but it was only interesting because it was built in a world that was already rich with lore. It built upon a strong foundation of interesting concepts, conflict, and history to move a timeline forward and on top of that allowed for modders to easily expand it further.
Fallout 3 and 4 followed the same formula as Skyrim. Build a mechanically good enough game built on a rich world and allow modders to expand it.
Fallout 76 was the first departure from building on what was already there and it was a disaster because it wasn't mechanically good enough.
Starfield is a new departure by making something that's mechanically good enough but also needing to build a whole universe from scratch which left it feeling dull for many.
ES6 represents an opportunity for Bethesda to go back to the formula that worked for them until now. There is a big risk that they will further streamline the gameplay making it less deep as they have done with every generation, but it's not a guarantee at this point in time.