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[NakeyJakey] Bethesda's Game Design Was Outdated a Decade Ago
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this post was submitted on 10 Dec 2023
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For some reason, Elder Scrolls is cursed. EVERY Elder Scrolls game that comes out (except Daggerfall) has a massive number of detractors about some facet of it that is "a pale shadow" of the previous.
I was around when people treated Morrowind like they are treating Starfield now. Then Oblivion had a much smaller complaint-base, but it revolved around the "disappointing lack of immersion" because Morrowind was such an opinionated game. Then Skyrim comes out and "it's like they put Training Wheels on Oblivion".
Starfield is just suffering from the same Elder Scrolls curse (but in space). To me, Starfield is a great game that might not be for everyone, but that some of those walking away from it are being told they don't like it.
And it's a bit of a problem. There's not much to change. The story is deep, so they can't add more story like NMS did. It's the most stable Bethesda game ever, so it's not about building stability. The gameplay mechanics are reasonable, so it's not about adding new systems. Bethesda might well be screwed this time - because there's nothing to change.
Daggerfall had some basic guiding principles that have been slowly stripped away by every new release...
It was unapologetically grimdark. The lore was dark, sinister, and scary... very Robert E Howard meets Lovecraft.
It was obsessed with simulation. They wanted a world that functioned logically... hour to hour, day to day, season to season, character to character, and as seamlessly as possible.
It strove for tabletop-level freedom without limits. You could climb, sneak, swim... across rooftops, in streets, in dungeons... there were no barriers whatsoever.
It reinforced that decisions have consequences, with multiple paths if you followed the main story.
With Morrowind, they killed the grimdark and gutted the lore. They replaced the existential dread of the lore with "weirdness". They took the mature, unflinching tone out behind the shed... replacing it with T-rated YA content. Oblivion finally completed the transition from grimdark to sterile high fantasy. This is especially heinous because the Elder Scrolls Bible laid out the franchise from Daggerfall through Oblivion, and Oblivion was supposed to be the final, the darkest, most oppressive game in the series, being literally about the end of the world.
While Morrowind strove to preserve some of the simulation, the grand multi-season scope pared this back somewhat. From there, it never evolved or advanced at all, with each new game using the same minimal, basic simulation.
The tabletop level freedom was completely axed as a guiding principle. Instead, the gameplay became much more gamey. No longer would you sink if you tried to swim while carrying too much weight, climbing has been completely non-existent, dungeoneering mechanics - and dungeoneering as a major gameplay loop - were removed en masse... and all while the seamless open world has had more and more seams - loading zones, invisible walls, etc - added.
And finally, all consequences were removed as basic principles. You could join any and all guilds or factions, your choices had no ramifications or outcomes or branching paths... there was not so much as an attempt to maintain an illusion of impact on the story or simulation.
These are the things people are talking about when they complain about each new TES game being lesser than the one before. And worst of all, they took all this withering away of ambition and applied it to Fallout, gutting the IP's very soul... and nobody really noticed this trend until Starfield, because it was a new IP that was less prone to being viewed through rose-tinted nostalgia.
Every Bethesda game that comes out (not just TES) is worse than the previous. Objectively. Because Todd Howard has removed every shred of fearless ambition from the company.