How Skyrim Ruined Bethesda

[@LoftOfTheUniverse]

The problem is Bethesda is trying to make a game where you play 1000 hours+ on 1 play through (which means endless radiant hellscape) rather than a 80-200 hour game that you want to play over and over again.

[@O_Tucano]

Well said.

[@petsbud2160]

Nothing more needs to be said. I don't know where this radiant obsession came from. Skyrim has multiple ways to approach the same good, hand-crafted content and that is why it has lasting power. Yes the mods help, but even in vanilla the game was brilliant. Same goes for even Fallout 4, definitely all their previous games. Fallout 76 and Starfield got corporate written all over

[@Azerkeux]

Bethesda's problem starts with Emil and ends with Pagliarulo

[@charlieperry477]

Yeah they focused on making the game “a game that people will play for ten years”, which was starfields downfall. They never tried to do that with their other games, yet they have so much more replay value than starfield, and have that “BGS magic” (only way I can describe that unique feel their games have lol, starfield just doesn’t have it).

[@Grobut81]

It's one of many problems, but yes, it is one of the very big ones.

[@SliceyMcHackHack]

I really liked what Hidetaka Miyazaki said about Elden Rings success.. - “I’m at a loss when people ask me why it’s been so successful, but my feeling is that I don’t intend to change the way I’ve been making things in the future,” he said. “I try not to think about it too much, because it could become a distraction when I make the next project. However, I am very grateful and feel honoured.” And I really think its something Bethesda has done.. They got too caught up in the success of Skyrim and forgot a lot of what made Skyrim so successful to begin with..

[@FeiFongWang]

He said that because Elden Ring was literally just open world Dark Souls, PS3 combat and all. He probably didn't think a rehashing of old ideas with a repetitive dead world would be so beloved, that's why he was baffled by it.

[@asdfghjkllkjhgfdsa8725]

​@@FeiFongWangyou dont really know what youre talking about

[@FeiFongWang]

​@@asdfghjkllkjhgfdsa8725 I think I do tbh

[@K.R.98]

Waiting for 20year until they finally give us what 99.99% of their fanbase wants/wanted wasn’t helpful either. No wonder they forgot how to make good games.

[@SliceyMcHackHack]

@@FeiFongWang That completely misses the point... he doesn't want his success to cloud his creativity for the next game.. As for ER the success was surprising because Dark Souls is still a niche genre and it absolutely destroyed previous sales by almost triple..

[@peckneck2439]

We liked exploring the map in Skyrim or Fallout 3/4 because we knew that no matter which direction we'll go we'll come across something. Lore, treasure, hidden quest. There was always something interesting to find. In Starfield, there is absolutely nothing to find but something you can scan, a random crater, sand, rocks and a randomly generated pirate outpost once every blue moon.

[@mwgyn]

I tried to get into exploring random planets, but got tired of seeing the same sentient microbe colony 50 times in a row.

[@KeytarArgonian]

Agreed, this is my gripe. In Skyrim and Fallout 4 it was fun to stumble across some random event, so I never fast traveled. It was so immersive to bump into a Stormcloak/imperial skirmish, a bandit attack, a super mutant patrol or hearing a gunfight a block over, peeping rounds the corner and seeing a Deathclaw vs some wandering gunners. All Starfield has is a handful of ship encounters or dogfights when you jump to a system. If the planets had actual random encounters outside the repetitive randomly generated dungeon outpost/labs it would be great. I came across 1 almost random encounter my whole playthrough of a brother and sister in the middle of nowhere and one was injured and needed a medpack. That was it.

[@seancdavis13]

This is it. This is what people loved about Skyrim and Fallout. They completely removed what people loved about their games.

[@28br]

⁠@@seancdavis13 no? there are so many handcrafted unique looking outposts or space stations or little farms i came across not even mentioning the unique landscapes and beasts. youre either lying and you didnt explore at all or your problem is that bethesda keeps signposting every little outpost with objective markers which makes the whole thing feel less organic plus yea radiant quests arent very engaging but that has been the case since skyrim and starfield undoubtedly has way more handcrafted content than any elder scrolls or fallout. that’s understandable but then be clear about that because what you just commented is straight up wrong

[@UrbanRally]

Never group fallout 3 and 4 together

[@naes124]

When mods are the best thing to look forward to in a game…..that’s a problem When modders actually have to fix your game…..that’s a problem

[@Sea-Keith]

I disagree,even the best games have mods to make them better,or different...

[@averymicrowave1713]

​@@Sea-KeithThere's a difference between making a different experience and trying to fix the old one, especially when the mods are basically fan patches for bugs and bad game design that the devs don't care to fix

[@miroo4097]

when modders say the game isn't WORTH modding.... thats a problem

[@skyriminspace]

Modders don't build the game from the ground up. They are standing on the shoulders of the actual developers who did.

[@skyriminspace]

​@@miroo4097there are currently 6096 mods for starfield on the nexus mod page. Someone obviously thinks starfield is "worth modding".

[@joeip101]

The moment I was able to freeroam in Skyrim, after the prisoner intro, I picked a random direction and just pressed forward. It wasn't until 30 hours of incredible adventuring later that I realized I hadn't seen a dragon yet. I asked my buddy when the dragons appear and he was dumbfounded, because you're supposed to see one like 10 minutes into the game if you follow the story. The game had kept me so engrossed in side content that I never once felt like I was losing out not playing the main storyline. Hope Bethesda can get back to that.

[@zachcanter3279]

And its really telling when you cant even have an experience similar to yours with Starfield. The most you can find yourself engrossed with is that randomly generated abandoned UC outpost 1000m from your landing site. Skyrim is still popular 11 years later solely because BSG didnt develop Skyrim with the intention of it becoming this “forever game” so to speak. Thats what really harmed Starfield

[@0potion]

​@@zachcanter3279Trying to make a forever game is the problem that most major devs are making today. The whole failing live service market is there attempts to make forever games.

[@marinewillis1202]

ah yes....the oh there is a dragon and a giant fighting moment...then after the giant wins walking up to the giant and getting sent into orbit lol

[@anthonycliftonjones2564]

Whenever I play Skyrim nowadays I tend to ignore the main storyline and most of the faction quests and instead just explore and fight my way across the map, simply enjoying the game.

[@30noir]

Apart from Alduin, you mean.

[@majin303]

Let’s just be honest starfield was very underwhelming

[@MassMissery]

Not for me and a lot of others. Thats an opinion not fact.

[@acudaican]

Yeah. Between hours 10ish and 50ish I had a blast, but that doesn't mean it wasn't mid lol. EDIT: Just a note for anyone whose gut reaction to disappointment is hatred. You can have a terrible time with mediocre things. Your subjective experience is not directly correlated to a game's objective quality. That being said, Starfield is okay. Just okay. Should we be expecting better from Bethesda? Yes. Should we be expecting better from a 70 dollar game? Absolutely. Is it honest to call Starfield's quality 'horrific' in the same year that Gollum and The Day Before released? Absolutely not.

[@daynmitchell7543]

@@MassMisseryit’s a fact it’s a boring game

[@Tport712]

​@daynmitchell7543 still an opinion. You're annoying opinion is not fact.

[@jeffmartinez3485]

Def underwhelming, arguably the weakest single player game they have released.

[@nickolasg495]

So glad you pointed out the same issues I found with legendary/unique weapons. The random drops really watered it down. Whereas before, there were quests and exploration required to find them. It felt far more rewarding exploring every spot, and using certain dialogue with npcs

[@twotamatos]

That was a total rip off of borderlands I get it u know that sorta RNG element of it can add verity to new play throughs or keep people hunting for a the best weapons n I truly like the incentive of higher level enemies better loot but it was way more rewarding to go through a mini quest or have to complete a big dungeon like area to get a unique weapon or even having to find blue prints and create it like the mesmatron was such a cool lil weapon to get for evil characters for a quest, Lincoln’s repeater for completing a lil dungeon trail & rail gun or deathclaw gauntlet when it comes to crafting such cool rewards, fo4 had a tiny bit of that but I really feel like elder scrolls always missed the mark with giving u great dungeons that could give u loot I feel like random weapons with random dungeons could be a good mix if they got the procedural generating down then allow modders too add more enemies right unlike star fields procedurally generated maps it could add endless hours of fun or something to grind for only if they mix it with lots of real made dungeons and vaults these games should have stuff u have to grind for, it’s just something about not having any ability to control what you get that can just make u super unbalanced if u get lucky or spend wayyyy to much time going for something with no control if ur unlucky neither of those elements of RNG with weapons is fun at all n it can be a bit like gambling which honestly is supposed to bring people in but there r folk like u who don’t like it and I can see why they just think look at the tubby chumos who play wow all day everyday n grind for loot we should do that for our games it’ll add a endless hours of value, when I feel like u can just as easily allow players to create those mods for weapons and upgrade them to the highest level and focus on creating more unique weapons vs here’s the same gun but with dead wire or whatever I did like however that luck as a special skill could effect loot you get but still think there are ways to add random elements without throwing off balance or ruin a system that was just fine just cuz it works in something else doesn’t mean it’s gonna have that same fun factor or casino gambler affect to draw in people to play for more the reason they did that in wow was so u could spend thousands of hours going for loot n u are paying them to play the game so yah

[@nickolasg495]

@@twotamatos I never really liked how you could find an explosive laser rifle on the corpse of a legendary rad roach. It just didn’t really make sense and kinda killed the immersion for me in fallout 4. Along with the voiced protagonist and various other details. I really enjoyed how new Vegas had the ammo reloading bench and allowed you to get similar effects as some legendary mods. Like armor piercing, explode ammo, and etc. That paired along with the unique weapons hidden throughout the Mojave or eligible to be purchased from merchants seemed way more rewarding and drew me on far more. Every little cave had to be explored. Every person spoken to. Instead of just loading in and farming legendaries repeatedly. Which admittedly does have the gambling aspect of fun to it, but I much rather prefer the former.

[@BradTheAmerican]

@@twotamatos Games had random loot long before Borderlands showed up

[@miltonbates6425]

​@@twotamatos Oh wow, so video games first started in 2009 with Borderlands? Who knew?!?

[@Low_Tier_Jamal]

I don't think they would be "ruined" if they kept making more games like Skyrim. I think most players would be happy with "Skyrim, but bigger and better". It's just baffling that they still have not made that, 12 years later. Skyrim didn't ruin them, not making more Skyrims is what ruined them. Look at how Fromsoft has followed up on the success of Dark Souls. They basically made more Dark Souls. Bigger Dark Souls. And that has gone very well for them.

[@theitechlab]

I personally think they did go “bigger”, but they went bigger in the areas that weren’t the fundamental reason for their success with Skyrim. For example, they went “bigger” in their procedural content in FO4/76 and Starfield. Was this the reason people loved Skyrim? No. They should’ve gone “bigger” in their approach to exploration and solid storytelling while going from point A to point B, which was something everyone loved about Skyrim.

[@Low_Tier_Jamal]

​@theitechlab What I mean is using Skyrim as more or less the template and building on that. That's why I used Fromsoft as an example. Comparing TES6 to Skyrim should be like comparing Elden Ring to Dark Souls. Part of that comparison is that TES6 should've been out by now. Add more spells, weapon types, skills, etc. Make the world and the cities bigger, but keep the design philosophy of letting the player enter any building, and NPCs being consistent with their own lives.

[@imo098765]

FromSoft also made Bloodborne, Sekiro and then made bigger Dark Souls in Elden Ring From Morrowind(Dark Souls), Made Oblivion(Dark Souls 2), Fallout 3(Sekiro/Bloodborne similar genre but different) and then Skyrim which is the Elden Ring in this analogy. How does FromSoft make a better Elden Ring? People liked the open world aspect, so now do they focus on the open world areas to have more content closer to a Ubisoft game? Or maybe its the dungeons/crypts, so how do we give more of that. Have it be generated so we can get more into the game We know doing that would ruin the game. So we saying they shouldnt be focusing on what made Elden Ring different from Dark Souls despite those aspects are what made the game so successful in the first place? Isnt that weird the thing that made it better is the same thing we saying dont make it bigger and better. Bethesda saw people love spending time in their worlds, they then went to make those worlds more realistic and bigger so they can do even more in them but doing so will make things less special and unique. When it was the unique shit in those worlds we could stumble upon is what made us want to spend more time in the game

[@Sumoniggro]

​@@theitechlab Skyrim has terrible storytelling, it has amazing and immersive exploration in a beautiful fantasy world and had decent combat for a 2011 fantasy action-adventure game it is a horrible RPG and showed Bethesda's continued pivot away from intricate RPG systems, meaningful choices with heavy themes, dialogue options and a compelling story, while moving towards the modern game style that is more action based, with light RPG elements to simulate progression and a facade of a story that tends to be shallow in it's complexity as well the ideas and themes being explored.

[@1vaultdweller]

Skyrim ruined them. It was many steps back from Morrowind, but got alot more support from modders so no one cared.

[@tommyhatfield2882]

Bethesda kept saying "you land on a planet and realize no one has been here before", then you look 100 yards from your landing spot and there is a randon windfarm or storage tank. I thought no one had been on this planet before?

[@RT-uc3ef]

Or the same science outpost you were just in on the last planet you visited

[@Xearrik]

What they didn't seem to realize when making Starfield is that the number 1 draw of exploring something other than the main quest is the "What's that over there?" element. You don't get that on a star map with nothing but load screens to explore with...

[@Foogi9000]

I fully believe if they had just stuck with one or two solar systems and made those to scale with content in-between that Starfield would have been much better.

[@janwatkins5523]

I think Bethesda needs to watch this video great job Matty

[@k--music]

They’d probably just argue about it in the comments

[@adhirajb]

@@k--music if someone sent me death threats just for saying something, I would be arguing as well.

[@k--music]

@@adhirajb don’t think those steam reviews contained any death threats

[@alexvalin9085]

i think ES6 is going to be a masterpiece and that this BS with FO76 and Starfield was them testing the market.

[@baseball741]

@@alexvalin9085Those are pretty expensive market tests. Gamers are so simple.

[@Morg2851]

I feel like they want to be more and more reliant on systems, and with Starfield they built a lot of stuff with cool concepts but couldn't stitch it together very well (outposts, temples, mission displays). I like the radiant missions in Starfield for playing pretend, but not with a game so segmented it harms the immersion. And the random loot eh I can see why they did it but it's a mess when you want a "simulation". I don't know why since Fallout 4 we saw less unique quests/loot and more radiant missions with random drops, maybe making content for quests is harder now compared to the Oblivion days when one guy was making all the dungeons, so it is an investment (scope, cost, time) that doesn't lead to much replayability, seeing that they don't like branching, meaningful quest resolutions (it would be healthy to have them, imho, especially in a game with a ng+). I also think they know all of this better that anyone, Morrowind design saved the company back then and it had none of this stuff, but they are trying to make infinite games, and that's not really possible outside of live service, not without artificially extending the gameplay, and that results in tedium, like in the procedural parts of Starfield. But they also wanted to make an exploration based space game and how do you do that without procedural generation? They are trying to strike a balance between handcrafted content and procedural stuff and that is ok, its the execution that is troublesome. For example in Starfield the unique weapons often have a custom name or a recolor but zero story behind them, zero unique legendary effects, compare that to daedric weapons with lore and significance or with something wacky that stands out like the alien blaster pistol. At least there is the mantis armor. Skyrim was a colossal hit for many reasons even outside of the game inherent design, it was a different time. Also, ambitious space games are kind of cursed for a reason.

[@5226-p1e]

i think your right, but i would say it's to much reliance on the procedural generation even when doing the quests, and i don't think it's any harder to make quests, in fact i would say it's far easier as they have significantly upgraded their engine and the tools through out the years are much easier to work with.

[@andrejz8954]

you're right* too much* throughout*@@5226-p1e

[@andrejz8954]

Agreed. I knew how this game is gonna be first time Todd said over gazillion planets. I also think that the only really good BGS game is Morrowind (haven't played Daggerfall tho), so I wasn't hyped anyway.

[@pmpowalisz]

Don’t forget that we live in the age where video games can be expanded on (through DLC, updates, and mods) long after release, and StarField is the perfect game for this.

[@Tony27654]

It was nice when you could find or earn a unique full armor set that looked cool and different from the other sets. Not anymore.

[@t-rexreximus359]

“I used to be an adventurer like you, then I took a loading screen to the knee” - Starbored

[@RT-uc3ef]

Starturd

[@UToobUsername01]

Starfield is basically daggerfall in space. Daggerfall had lots of open space and a giant map. But the wilderness areas in the overworld were pretty much empty. (the witches covens and other hidden areas would occasionally be discovered this way by exploring however) The bulk of the combat took place in the many dungeons in the map.

[@smokingbarrels7019]

I would still play Daggerfall over Starfield any day.

[@mouradhalbi1554]

Starfield is not really a game that we would like to play often, too much download between each action that is a door, a fast travel or even the use of the inventory and the hud not adapted

[@makeitthrough_]

At least Daggerfall has an interesting world to play in (like, from a world building and lore perspective, not moment to moment gameplay) and good gameplay for its time. Starfield's gameplay feels outdated and there isn't a single thing about its world, story, characters, quests, environments or general atmosphere I find interesting. Calling it milquetoast would be an insult to whatever milquetoast is

[@galliumgames3962]

Somehow Daggerfall pulled it off better in the mid 90s by having believably sized settlements, an actual open world instead of tossing you a desolate 6 x 6 km box, and dungeons were actually procedurally generated instead of being copy pasted exactly down to the enemy placement and loot.

[@Chinothebad]

After having seen how the npcs were just random people and seeing how you had large spaces with something every 5 miles or so, I could see Starfield as the closest thing to Daggerfall. Though on that same note, it doesn't really hit the same. Especially when you see how Daggerfall's cities, along with Arena's were much bigger and had lots of people running around. That and Daggerfall's maze like dungeons had more going for them than even the dungeons of Skyrim.

[@ThePSNnerd]

One thing that sticks out to me is the quote and im paraphrasing here but essentially it was "we got game of the year so many times so we thought we could do anything" in regards to 76. That attitude is clearly infecting Bethesda game design as of late. Hearing the news that they turned down essentially a New Vegas 2 was heartbreaking to hear as well, hoping BGS finds that magic again for ES6.

[@moist1700]

I mean, unless they get a wake up to reality and get their shit together they'll just keep making low effort games because it worked good enough for 76.

[@peabuddie]

They've always been jealous of NV.

[@anubis7457]

Crackpot Theory: Todd Howard hates the ES series, seeing as he pulled all work from the next game to focus on Fallout and, more egregiously, his pet project Starfield. Then he released Starfield in a shitty state to ruin Bethesda’s reputation. Since Starfield will have sold well on Bethesda’s reputation alone, he can simply update it over time to make it bearable/ work on the sequel. But the damage in reputation will damage Elder Scrolls 6’s sales, regardless of its quality. This means he can point to Starfield’s stellar sales compared to ES6 and say “See?! We should make another Starfield!” He wants to tank the series so he can focus on the sci-fi he personally likes.

[@janoycresva2279]

They should start using design documents and start making emil mop the floors instead of writing.

[@AthosZ92]

He's genuinely incompetent.

[@5226-p1e]

funny thing about that comment, i used to be a custodian, i'm also a creative writer and i would often write some of my best work while i was doing something like moping a floor, because it allows your mind to relax and you only have your thoughts, so lots of reflection when it comes to a story or something along these lines comes to your mind in a very productive state and you can fully think things through. i used to talk elder scrolls lore with my coworker who was also a custodian and he loved talking about that stuff with me.

[@MattWiles]

lol I’ve literally just downloaded Skyrim and started playing a 5 year old save, one minute in, this video notification pops up. By the way, how does Skyrim still look so good even on PS5!?

[@zach9533]

The Art design is top tier in Skyrim. I think that goes a long way in making the game still look good.

[@theitechlab]

Art and art design goes a long way in making a game last and still look good years later for sure! Graphics, while important, don’t quite do the same. A game with great graphics but no soul or meaning to their in-game art (looking at Ubisoft’s open world games over the last few years) fail to hold up in the long term. Games that may not have the best graphics but have an incredible art style and design (Prey, 2017) stand the test of time and still look good years later, despite the fact that they weren’t fantastic graphically by any means, even back when they launched. Skyrim is the same way-still looks really awesome even 12 years later, all thanks to a very tight, well-crafted art design.

[@acev3521]

Skyrim graphics were red dead 2 level in their time.

[@AHungryHunky]

@@zach9533 This, good art direction can hold off age for a long time.

[@dysphunc]

Hot take - how much better/different would have Starfield have felt if it took place in entirely in Sol. No jumping to different systems, you physically fly to every location once - then fast travel back like typical BGS games. So you HAD to explore in your ship making the ship relevant. Single landing locations with larger biomes, the content generators at the outskirts of the locations. Holy hell, I'd still be playing that game.

[@TheWefikus]

Word. Would closely resemble The Expanse. I love that series

[@theolized]

I have no problem with the current Starfield design. However, I expect each solar system to have a unique quest so I can keep wondering what am I going to encounter in the solar system. Unfortunately, most of them don't.

[@praisethesun6078]

I use my ship all the time. If you choose not to use it that's on you. Not the game.

[@Pangora2]

even then, limit it to a few systems and only fast travel was jumping between star systems.

[@TheVeillin]

This was a top tier video matty. I’d like videos in this style more often. Maybe a series delving into the history behind a studio/game

[@KaoticReach1999]

When top modders are in the news for saying "starfield isn't worth the trouble" ESPECIALLY from a Bethesda game, you know something went wrong

[@RyanWeeks000]

You know I've thought a lot about why Starfield doesn't hit as well as it could. And while I agree with much of what you said, I think there are some key things they didn't do that would have made the massive amount of procedural content work. The big thing missing in my opinion is the ship perspective is not a vehicle for fluid exploration. Space very much could have been the "overworld" between the planets, where you move around and discover things. The fluidity and dynamism of space just isn't there. There are events, but they spawn after fast travel etc. Really breaks the potential flow of exploration. The other thing is the way the implementation procedural and sandbox elements (civilian outposts, and outpost building for example). They have no connection to the RPG elements. You can't build outposts for LIST. You may do a procedural quest for Ryujin at a Science Outpost, but does that effect your reputation with Ryujin? Nope. At least the game doesn't convey it. The procedural/sandbox stuff is just disconnected entirely from the RPG universe. Making them feel utterly pointless. (Edit: I see your point about the theives guild) One more note: I would say having 100 systems is fine, and basically focusing unique content within 20 while leaving the other 80 largely prcoedural would also be ok. But they did not telegraph this in any way. Leaving a sour taste once the player ventures out. But yeah Starfield doesn't fit the mold of a typical Bethesda game in many ways, and it kind of seems that they didn't know how to get what it needed in there in time.

[@lmojol9673]

Ya the biggest bummer for me was the space exploration. Did you ever play assassins creed 1 (maybe it was 2…. Might’ve been both I can’t remember)? Remember the loading screens where it’s just you running through the “simulation?” Space travel feels like that in starfield to me. Just a giant loading screen where I get to move around a little bit. I expected so much more from them. Especially when other games have already done it.

[@SilvyReacts]

*"There are events, but they spawn after fast travel etc. Really breaks the potential flow of exploration."* Yes and no. Not sure if many know this but if you hang around out in space, events will occurs when you are just flying around as well. You don't have to fast travel in order for them to occur. I have had missed quite a few events because I activated my grav drive as they occurred. The issue is you rarely have a reason to stay in space, and so more often than not you are just grav jumping and then landing straight away. I think their current system would work better if you could manually fly between planets and moons within a system in a reasonable way. And as far as I am aware, their game is already setup to be able to handle that sort of mechanic. *"But they did not telegraph this in any way. Leaving a sour taste once the player ventures out."* This is one area where it's pretty hard to be a game developer because very often you can find where they do explain these sorts of things, but it's usually spread out between showcases, interviews, articles, etc. Many players don't keep up with every little thing like that, and so they set their own expectations which can result in them getting something different than what they expected. But I don't think that's fixable for a developer. It's not like they can just put every piece of information in a single video and expect everyone to see it. You would have the same issue as many would likely skip through a lot of it, or just not watch it at all.

[@AHungryHunky]

I agree with this, the fluid exploration is probably what is most missing from the game. But I also disagree with Matty on his points of the downtime between locations. He talks about how you wouldn't know who approaches you, or how that's when you would point to something new and go there, and not focus on the sunrise or the way the wind blows. That's just, entirely wrong for me. I focus so much on the wind, the sunrise, the sunset, how Masser And Secunda would orbit, how the stars actually moved slowly as the month passed. I'm actually, as I listen to this video watching Tou Ceti VIII slowly move to eclipse Tou Ceti (the sun) from the frozen pines at the north pole of its second moon. Maybe I'm just Todd's ideal market, someone who never gets tired of just watching the world go, real or virtual.

[@RyanWeeks000]

@@AHungryHunky yeah I like the sim aspects. It's really what sets Bethesda apart. I like the base building in fallout4 and the only thing I don't like about FO4's proc content is that it feels like you get accosted by it.

[@AHungryHunky]

@@RyanWeeks000 Yeah, they kind of screwed up by having Presto Gravey just dump the quests on you instead of having a way to ask. Makes him a miserable companion to have when he tosses a proc quest on you before you've even finished the last one and you really aren't interested in doing them anymore. Shame, because he is actually one of my favorite companions otherwise. At least they learned and put the proc quests on terminals in Starfeild

[@connorwelsh9641]

It's so evident that this video was made out of a place of love, care, and, most importantly, a desire for better. So many videos around Starfield (and relatively disappointing games in general) have such a toxic and dismissive attitude that ultimately are harmful to the gaming community overall. So happy that you approached this the way you did!

[@malcolmhodnett8874]

All criticism shouldn’t be hopeful. We need the full spectrum

[@Badjujubee]

What's more deflating about this is Starfield has been Todd's dream for more than a decade now. Like straight up this is "the" game Todd has wanted to make since he started at Bethesda. And it's just so gosh dang flat

[@theitechlab]

More videos like this are definitely needed. Just as BGS should ignore 10/10 “BEST GAME EVER” reviews, they should discount any videos on the opposite end that are acting like it is the worst game ever made. Nuance and criticism coming from a place of care and a desire for better is much more productive than screaming in a microphone and rabidly complaining. I hope BGS watches this.

[@Steel-101]

Well the thing is I find it really bizarre how some fans find Starfield to be so disappointing. Honestly I think fans had unrealistic expectations for the game. I was expecting Fallout/Skyrim in space(with a little Mass Effect in the mix) and that’s exactly what we got(that isn’t a bad thing at all). I think fans forgot that the creation engine has limitations and it’s not gonna have the whole no man’s sky style of spaceflight when it comes to landing on planets. Actually I’m surprised that the space combat feels so smooth in this game. Don’t misunderstand me though I’m not saying it’s a 10/10. For me it’s an 8/10. I love this new universe and the factions. Really want to see more

[@Steel-101]

@@theitechlab Yeah I agree I really do avoid a lot of video game criticism these days because it feels like they’re trying to find flaws that don’t exist just for the sake of views. There are some KZbinrs that I do trust(including this channel of course) but still I like to judge the game for myself these days. And hey if it’s terrible then I messed up, I’ll return it. That’s why I always keep the receipts lol 😂.

[@clarinetgirl75]

I agree here. I also think they should've focused on more custom content rather than just adding 100 systems of mostly random points of interest. I know they intend to add more content and hope modders will fill out more of that space too, but it has to be more interesting in the first place, imo.

[@Modverse]

Yea i finished my run, maybe went to 5 random planets? Missing that random location turning into a sprawling dungeon

[@LiquidDIO]

I wouldn't hold your breath for mods. A lot of the top tier modders aren't super interested in Starfield at the moment.

[@Mjjrex100]

Those slow, quiet moments in Bethesda games are important. Back in Skyrim, after leaving Riverwood you cross the bridge and follow the road, down the path where you get jumped by a wolf trying to eat a rabbit. Past that and before the random encounter with the Stormcloak prisoner, there is a small clearing that gives you (in my opinion) the perfect view of Whiterun. The sun was starting to set to give the sky that beautiful color, I was captivated. I stopped and just observed, adjusted my position slightly for the perfect angle, and listened to the music. It was beautiful, so beautiful that I had a dream years later that I experienced that exact moment as if the world was real and I was there, i think i was moved to tears in my dream. In Starfield, I don't get that anywhere. Graphically? it's pretty, but I haven't seen any views that capture me. The random generation doesn't have those moments of awe. And cities just aren't as captivating to see in the distance. Probably because you don't see it first in the distance, but you are just there after landing on the planet. Nothing feels captivating.

[@richardtrump2544]

I used to sit at night in Skyrim with my companion Inigo out in the wilds and we would look at the stars and moons moving past. Beautifully immersive, even my mod character was moved!

[@imo098765]

yeah Todd is 100% correct about the immersive aspects of the games being important. The problem with Starfield is that there isnt those moments he is speaking about because we know exploring 99% of the planets are useless so we not going to get that moment walking at night, seeing the aurora borealis peering over the mountains in the distance, winds blowing and then Far Horizons starts playing with the thuds of your footsteps on the roads.

[@djdjdijon]

You have a very sad life

[@juliusfishman7222]

Bro was playing one of the least most immersive games on earth and looking at the sky

[@SilentSpringz]

@@djdjdijonyea sounds pathetic

[@JamesF0790]

@@djdjdijon They're not the one insulting people in youtube comments. Look inwards.

[@Gbag34]

A combination of very obvious long term things definitely ruined Bethesda. Firstly, their over reliance on automated systems and procedural content. This kind of content is fine to supplement an already rich game world, but even in Skyrim I found this kind of content to be tiresome and lazily implemented. In fact, it was so bad in Skyrim, I challenge you to do some research and find out which misc quests are handcrafted and which send you to radiant locations. If you can’t tell the difference, it’s not because the radiant quests are that good. It’s because the side content is genuinely that shallow. Second, their approach to design, most notably deciding post Fallout 3 to stop keeping a universal design document. AKA the Emil problem. This leads to narrative and thematic atrocities and a disjointed world with tons of plot holes and issues. This leads to tons of issues where factions and characters rarely make sense within the context of multiple narratives, or issues where the game doesn’t offer options to respect choices made elsewhere in the game. This is why every single quest line and faction seems like it was developed in a vacuum and why there is hardly if ever any interplay between narratives. Thirdly and most notably, the fans. People have given Bethesda far too much leash. Their games have steadily been declining since Morrowind. Slowly at first, sure, but criticizing and recognizing flaws in their games is not something many Bethesda fans did. In fact, criticism has often been met with hostility in my experience. All of this has come to a crushing reality with Starfield. I don’t really know how else to say it aside from Starfield is the game that uncritical Bethesda fans deserve. It’s what happens when we let them dumb things down and rely on procedural generation for so long they genuinely start to believe their work is infallible. People defended years of awful writing and design decisions and this is what we got for it. The worst part is I don’t even think Bethesda understands the flaws anymore, because we as a fanbase have not been helpful in the slightest being transparent and critical of what works and what doesn’t.

[@Penrose707]

Well said

[@WholeHolyHole]

As my grandpa loves to say: you straight spittin’ facts, son!

[@mwgyn]

As someone who loves Bethesda and grew up playing Morrowind on OG Xbox in 2005, all of the things I have been saying are an issue for years to people have really come to fruition with them. I had no idea about Emil before Starfield as much as I hated FO4 writing, but now soooo muuuuuch makes sense. This man really said Skyrim's story is "biblical" and that he doesn't follow established Fallout lore. Very disappointing to see, but not surprising at all.

[@TheEljefe20]

2 big problems for Bethesda imo: 1. The long gaps between games raises expectations. If starfield came out 2 or 3 years after FO4 it would be viewed much more favorably imo. 2. It seems like a studio that has fallen behind the times. To be building games on what feels like a very old engine is very questionable for a company with BGS resources. Its clear there is a lot of talent there for building expansive sandboxs to explore and play in, but a carpenter is only as good as his tools.

[@Steel-101]

Even though bums me out that we have to wait a long time for a new elder scrolls and fallout game, I am still a bit relieved that they aren’t just dishing out games nonstop like Ubisoft or Star Wars Content like Lucasfilm Disney+(Including Marvel).

[@perceivedvelocity9914]

That's a good point. The games wouldn't be special if they came out every year.

[@Steel-101]

@@perceivedvelocity9914 exactly. It gives the players time to enjoy everything in the game before the next one comes out. There is so much stuff that Bethesda and obsidian adds to their games. It’s been over 10 years and I keep on finding new stuff in each game. Still I am getting a bit impatient. I want Fallout 5!! Lol 😂

[@bartholomewesperanza3442]

10+ years is way too long. It’ll never be good enough to live up to the hype. You can have a happy middle in between putting out crap every year and going 15 years in between games. I was 15 when Skyrim originally released and I’ll probably be in my 30s when TES 6 is actually released.

[@Steel-101]

@@bartholomewesperanza3442 Well yeah it’s a bummer that you Elder scrolls fans have to wait so long. However I disagree with you, the next elder scrolls game will live up to the hype. I say that because This is going to be a single player game with one massive map not thousands of planets & it’s not multiplayer. I love Starfield but I have to admit that Bethesda did a little bit too much in that game. Their main strength is focusing on one map.

[@bartholomewesperanza3442]

@@Steel-101 I haven’t played starfield but I’m entirely uninterested in it. It looks bland and soulless to me. The elder scrolls 6 might be a good game but to me if it’s coming out 15 years after Skyrim it needs to be a basically perfect game. I don’t really have faith in Bethesda to make that

[@VndNvwYvvSvv]

As someone who worked for them, it was Oblivion's engine that did this all. The 2nd mistake was releasing Fallblivion. Fallout 76 and ESO were worse. Telling people how bad it was going to be is exactly why I no longer work there, LOL.

[@aRock-orSomething]

Saying Skyrim ruined BGS creatively is the nail on the head. Skyrim is the perfect example of where graphics to the current generation is all that matters. The short main quest lines as well as the redundant ‘guild’ quests where they were so short and then you finish and it’s all just “go get/do this and come back.” the fact that the random generated weapons in FO4 and SF ruined the excitement of opening a expert or hard chest or container, because not it’s not worth wasting the countless lockpicks or digi picks, because it MIGHT contain a high level item, but more than likely it will contain useless shit… and because of that there’s no story to getting those items such as the victory rifle, Gobi Scout rifle or the Xuanlong AR. All those As well as the rest of the redundancy that made Skyrim so “successful” is why BGS made FO4 and Starfield the same way. Graphically TeS:5, FO4 and SF are beautiful, but creatively speaking the quests and everything else are all poorly written and short.

[@ambds1975]

Bethesda and I want the same thing; I want them to sell me an amazing enough time that I keep going back to buy good times from them. I think they are just missing their mark right now on how to do that. For example - the ash storms in Morrowind and the snow storms in Skyrim served the dual purpose of intensifying tone AND camouflaging the maps, creating a sense of distance and mystery without bloating up the map size or making us go through endless load screens. Beth needs to add more tricks like that back in. If they want that badly to sell Feelings instead of Content, they need to remember how they sold feelings in the first place.

[@schadenfreude6274]

The moment Todd said "Over 1000 Planets" was the moment everyone knew Starfield would be a Complete Failure. :)

[@Foogi9000]

Yeah, you can't be like No Man's Sky and Skyrim at the same time.

[@dialloayodele8094]

When I play Starfield I really wished I could get the way it played, felt and looked like mixed with Skyrims feel and why Skyrim worked but in Starfield. But its even weirder that Starfield isn’t that it would be better smaller like do a solar system design all the planets and just focus on that not 100s

[@ivancerecer5758]

Play the Outer Wilds I just beat it, and it was beautiful Its only 1 solar system, but its very fleshed out

[@austinbevis4266]

The worst thing about starfield is that it is literally infinite and aside from areas on planets with landmarks, it is randomly generated ai crap. You can explore the same planet infinitely because each time you pick a spot to land at, you’re essentially creating that area. That area doesn’t exist prior to you landing. I hope this makes sense. But this basically makes it so that none of these areas have any story being told and are just utterly soulless.

[@isturbo1984]

the problem is they didnt focus on 100s, the problem is they didnt focus on anything. there was zero focus.

[@austinbevis4266]

@@isturbo1984 exactly. Even one planet in starfield is too much considering it is literally infinite!! So adding a thousand planets that can all be infinite is the same as adding nothing. Then the hand crafted areas we did get, felt so detached from the gorgeous concept art of the cities that we saw before launch.

[@No-One.321]

I enjoyed Starfield a lot and it felt more like fo4 to me but I could definitely see the Skyrim feel also, just more on the fo4 side.

[@user-dj9iu2et3r]

Watching that clip of Todd’s interview with Lex Friedman where he talks about the “quiet moments” and whatnot really made me think about Death Stranding. Death Stranding got maligned by many people for being an “Amazon delivery man simulator” (which it is at least in part) but I think it NAILED that sense of atmosphere more than almost any game. I honestly don’t know how Kojima made a game about making deliveries so fun but I truly love that game. I really wish Matty would give it a shot. It IS a “walking/delivery man simulator…” But it’s also SO MUCH MORE than that. Great video Matty, btw

[@blaket1841]

The problem with Bethesda is they didn't think to try and evolve. They just kept remastering the same game for the past 12 years. The release of Starfield proves that. Even things like their game engine looked outdated 10 years ago.

[@paperenoch]

Oblivion was the first ES game I got to really play and I remember when I got out of the sewers I just made a beeline for Weynon Priory, literally just went straight through/over everything to get there. And I thought it was so sick that I was able to do that LOL and I share your sentiment about Fallout 3. First few hours of Fallout 4 and Skyrim do seem more linear and guided. Like stepping out the Sewers or The Vault, you look out and there's a buncha shit right in your face instantly, whereas with their predecessors it's kinda like, "Go here and also there's stuff to check out peppered along the way".

[@tomigun5180]

I got out the sewers, killed two wolves that rolled downhill with the most ridiculous weightless ragdoll physics I've ever seen, looked at the empty world and went straight back playing Gothic. 😎

[@SotiCoto]

Try Morrowind some time. You just get kicked off a boat in a little village on the edge of a swamp full of huge mangrove trees. Once you exit the building, all you've got is the name of a contact and a town to find, but you don't even have a quest marker to know where to go. You have to talk to people to get directions. Or in my case I checked the real life paper map I got with the game because I had the collectors edition... which I only thought to check after being lost in the swamp for 2 hours trying to find my way out (and I do not regret the experience). I mean just think about that. You don't even have to do that in real life any more. People have GPS devices and stuff to make life more and more like a game... but Morrowind had checking a paper map (that was surprisingly accurate) and asking NPCs for directions. Funnily enough, I've tried to do the same in Skyrim VR. I've got ALL quest markers turned off. Next to no HUD. But the funny thing is that the game is so reliant on quest markers that when they're removed, there is basically no hint as to where you should be going for things. The instructions to get to places are awful. If it wasn't for the fact that I've played Skyrim to death and remember where everything is (including all 24 Stones of Barenziah), I'd quite simply be unable to complete even the simplest of quests. Well, that and the Clairvoyance spell. That spell is normally kinda useless in Skyrim, but without the quest markers, it really comes into its own.

[@paperenoch]

@@SotiCoto Hell yeah!!!! I love Morrowind as well. Oblivion was my first tho (; Had a buddy who had Morrowind and I wanted it SO BAD lol, just never was able to get an Xbox ​@SotiCoto

[@mpalm4602]

Excellent points about experience vs simulation and procedural loot. It was incredible in FO3, NV, Skyrim, etc. to find unique/rare weapons and there was a true sense of progression because of it. I didn't give a single shit about 1 unique weapon in starfield. Side note: your video on how to acquire chillrend is when I first subbed, great video Matty

[@mwgyn]

This is something that I never realized I missed until I picked up Skyrim again earlier and now that it was mentioned in this video, actually unique weapons were fun to search for and display in my houses even if I never used them. Lol

[@Nikkska]

@@mwgynalways gotta have that shelf or cabinet to store the uniques!!!

[@DMsubble]

My most memorable moment in skyrim is stumbling into Mzinchaleft and by turn, Blackreach. Being awestruck at how cool it was down there. I immediately began looking into the lore of the area and then when i learned i was meant to come here eventually anyway and there are like 4 entrances to it, it became my favorite location in any bethesda game ive played yet. And it had nothing to do with being on a quest or having any goals in mind aside from seeing where this elevator i ran across is gonna lead.

[@joeycoe85]

I want to make it clear: I think the problem with the Creation Engine is that, it has to load so often. All the seamless transitions that you see in modern games will NEVER happen in BGS games b/c, no matter how much you upgrade the engine, it still has a base limit on what it can load in a given length of time, hence all the loading screens in Starfield. They’re BRIEF, but there’s so many of them. I may be wrong, as my coding knowledge isn’t deep, but that’s the conclusion I came to, thanks to my general observations.

[@Folk661]

Nail on the head man. I think back to games like Ocarina of time when I was young, when you set out across hyrule field not knowing which way to turn, it was little story hints that guided you along. Not blinking flashing markers and procedural locations with fetch quests. When you arrived at a dungeon in Zelda there was a puzzle to get in, a puzzle to go deeper, and a puzzle to get finish the boss. You would come out of a dungeon two days later and something in the world had changed. The story progressed. Now it’s just like these Ubisoft games. Graphics, scale, and loot, and tedious traversal to some mindless killing or mini games that go round and round. Far cry, assassins creed, fallout all failed hard for the exact reasons you’re describing. I think game developers will have to dig deeper into the philosophical aspects of gaming to re-ignite the genre of open world and exploration games.

[@Bluespirit12345]

Long story short, Skyrim has quality and quantity. Bethesda mistook that success, and added more quantity and less quality.

[@TurisasFTW]

And huge gaps between the games. It used to be 2-4 years and it was perfect. Now it's at least 10 years. Might be even 15+ years. Nothing but endless waiting. Our average lifespan is 75 yeas (if you are lucky). We simply don't have time for that.

[@ExecutiveSonda]

"Quality", dogshit story and engine.

[@andrewmoluf4299]

It bleeds into lots of different areas in the games too. Just look at crafting in Fo3 vs Fo4. Fo3 had a couple cool items you could create so it was kind of a big deal when you could find a lawnmower blade or whatnot. Fast forward to Fo4 and you pretty much need to collect every piece of junk you find. You'd rather find 4 desk fans than a unique weapon...it's really hard to consider that an improvement in gameplay despite how much more involved the crafting system is

[@jimliedeka3978]

After several hundred hours, I feel like I had all the fun there is to be had in Starfield. After several thousand hours, I can still see going back to Skyrim. One thing you didn't mention is the replayability factor. In Skyrim, you can play the stealth archer or battle mage or sword and board, etc. In Starfield, it takes so long to acquire useful skills that style oriented playthrough isn't really practical. In the time I can make an OP destruction mage, I might have pistols and piloting leveled up and not much else. You can certainly make your own fun in Starfield but it really doesn't have the staying power of Skyrim.

[@steveballmersbaldspot2.095]

Yeah, I hope they learn from Starfield and narrow the scope of the world(in terms of size) accordingly in ES6. Improving the writing and making the quests/world feel more connected and reactive would be great too.

[@joker6558]

@@steveballmersbaldspot2.095doubtful. They’ve never been good writers and that isn’t going to change now.

[@ralphiecifaretto8961]

Several hundred? The game just came out!

[@steveballmersbaldspot2.095]

@@ralphiecifaretto8961 It's been out for months, a few hundred hours is totally doable.

[@zeldie2375]

@@steveballmersbaldspot2.095The awful head writer literally had a meltdown on Twitter about how fans just don’t get how hard it is to make games or something. Extremely doubtful.

[@Jonas_æ]

I also worry that some of the things that made the earlier games special were due to company structure. Now that Bethesda has grown in size, it adds a lot of bureaucracy to the design process. Instead of just having discussions around the lunch table and playing off each others’ ideas, now you have x amounts of meetings simply for keeping everyone on the same page. Many AAA game companies have fallen into a trap of just adding more and more people and bloating both their games and their companies. And I think it both makes for worse games and an unsustainable way of making them. A former Bethesda dev, who now works on his own indie project made the a similar point in a recent NoClip interview.

[@Hero_Of_Old]

I think you're right

[@steveballmersbaldspot2.095]

Yeah too many cooks.

[@evanbrum6357]

10:22 I see why you made this video. Todd says they care so much about the "quiet moments"... But Todd, if your people are also admitting that you copy + pasted one solar system 1000 times, then there's just no way you could ever put the necessary level of detail into those 1000 planets to make me actually ENJOY the quiet moments.

[@robotron1236]

Skyrim was Todd’s true “Magnum Opus.” It’s one of the greatest games of all time and I still play it to this day. Thumbed down…

[@michaelantonace6739]

This is fantastic I wish Todd or a BGS dev would watch this. This is the sentiment of all fans. Well said Matty very well said

[@heroicgangster9981]

Bethesda really taking the wrong ideas of what people like from Skyrim oof… We don’t like the games for the large amount of terrain Bethesda, we like it for the characters and stories within that handcrafted terrain

[@heroicgangster9981]

@@Scarab2187 Because that’s only one part of why people like Bethesda games? It’s like people liking another game for its renowned RPG combat but they sacrificed the story in the next game because they were focused on it more than the past game. The reception from that feeling like something is missing compared to their past games. That’s Xenoblade X. It’s a fun Xenoblade game but the lack of engaging linear story makes it lacking compared to the other games. Bethesda creates large worlds. But the reason why people love those worlds in the first place is because of the quests, story, and characters cleverly distributed throughout that huge world.

[@DanCollier1]

I dont think ive ever been so disappointed with a game since Starfield. I was pumped for it but not over hyped considering Bethesdas engine and gameplay but honestly after finishing Phantom Liberty Starfield felt like an xbox 360 game upscaled.

[@gs8494]

You're not wrong, Starfield isn't a bad game but it isn't a very good one either, it's just painfully average at best and lazy at worst, the Creation engine is showing its age, it was showing it's age with Skyrim 12 years ago, now it's laughably bad.

[@kreature6618]

Worst buyers remorse ever and won't ever be buying anything from them again. WOKE trash. Cyberpunk 2077 - best game to come out in the last ten years hands down.

[@firebirdstark]

They gave us shit we didn’t want instead of more elder scrolls. They thought their shit don’t stink and then break super broken games that are not fun to play. And they’re paying the price for it

[@ardentdfender4116]

The way Bathesda screwed up Starfield and how it remain broken will never get me invested to play Elder Scrolls VI.

[@Nerdvanna98]

Thanks for this Matty. I've been so put off from Starfield after putting 70 hours in and just not feeling engaged to anywhere near like I did Skyrim, to the point that I've even been put off of playing other Bethesda games but this definitely reminds me that maybe a lot of this is just a massive disconnect from what Bethesda thinks we want and what we actually do.

[@danielurban4221]

Great video Matty. I agree with almost everything you said. Starfield is the worst single player Bethesda game IMO. It was fun for 30 hours but I struggled to finish the game and I have no desire to play again even with the NG+. I spent hundreds of hours on every BGS game since Oblivion but I doubt I will ever pick up Starfield again even with the DLC coming.

[@mistermelancholy7698]

On the note of simulation the problem is if they want to start making their games more of a simulation they need to look at games like dwarf fortress and rimworld, noita and FTL, your procedural content needs to be consisting of so much handcrafted content that you can't even decipher it from the handcrafted content because the quality is on par it is your content and a lot of the handcrafted content can happen to you based on r&g which is basically procedural as well, 😊 a good simulation game puts you in a world that feels chaotic and gives you just enough to survive like a rogue lite basically

[@mouradhalbi1554]

Scenario, narration of dialogues, choice and consequence in the scenario, rigid animation, aged graphics, bug, glicht and many other problems, it is all the problems that Bethesda must fix And that he changes his scenist because Emil Pagliarulo is not a light. Comparison to other studios that do much better work with less important means, Bethesda seems to be another age

[@Mcspluggy]

I’m so glad you pointed out the loot system, that’s one of my biggest gripes and it seems no one points it out. You hit the nail right on the head

[@cmdr.jabozerstorer3968]

It's one of things I dislike about Fallout 4 compared to Fallout 3. I liked the rarity of armour and weapons in Fallout 3. A sniper rifle could break and you could run out of ammo. You had to diversify and change weapons a lot, or stock up or repair. In Fallout 4 you had ridiculously powerful legendaries and the like. It just took away from the atmosphere of the world. It'd just not be reasonable within the Fallout universe to have such weapons. Falloit 4 feels much more like a looter-shooter because of that. I wanted more weapon and armour scarcity. Edit: oh and the enemy scaling predicated that too. In Fallout 3 pretty much all deathclaws were the same. In Fallout 4 they had tougher versions, which meant you required more powerful weapons.

[@5226-p1e]

@@cmdr.jabozerstorer3968 yeah the legendries sucked in FO4, i get where they were going with them, but they were badly implemented, i suppose they were trying to make something like the enchantment system in skyrim most people actually like, but the issue in FO4 is that there is no enchantment table so you just get really dumb enchantments and there is no customizations either in that system because they are meant to be these special weapons that you come across. like it's a good idea, but it's a poorly implemented idea at the same time so it just comes off as this weird mix of ideas and doesn't quite hit the mark that people like. the reason why it was fun in skyrim is because you could destroy the weapon and learn the enchantment and apply it to other items or multiple items with multiple enchantments on one item based on your skills, that's what made it fun, but i also understand why they didn't offer the enchantment system, because this is fallout and they are trying to make the game hard for balancing but also trying to keep the game somewhat more realistic. it's funny because i have tried to find an disenchanter mod for FO4 and it simply can't be found, because many modders don't like that kind of thing, it's not immersive, so i end up finding mods that just disable the legendries instead as the result.

[@popblender]

I feel like the things that made those games so special back in 2006-2012 (and even FO4 to an extent) was they were so big and expansive with questing that tied together. The observational storytelling was also core to the "feel" of their games. Bethesda was so good with lore in many different presentations of it, that it was easy to get drawn in to their game worlds. The games that really made Bethesda what they are were done at a time where there most rpg's didn't have as expansive or interactive of a sandbox to play in. At that time, I believe the general consumer didn't expect that level of world building in games. There were outliers of course, but those types of games weren't commonplace at that time. Now, our expectations are so much more because we have tons of the types of games Bethesda specialized in. And we can compare and contrast those games against each other. With the advancements in graphical fidelity, sound fidelity, and overall gameplay, I think it's harder and harder to be impressed when games come out and they feel like they're missing something. I think it's why game budgets have become so bloated and unfocused. Devs are trying to do more or find that next Skyrim and it's at a time when players think that a game has to be perfect in every way or else it's bad or underwhelming. Gaming in the early 2000's to the mid 2010's was a golden age of innovation and game development. It is infinitely more difficult to make games that surpass expectations now than ever before. It's possible Bethesda may NEVER get back to being on the Mount Rushmore of game companies. And we'll have to figure out if we accept that or not.

[@Pmurder3]

"expansive or interactive of a sandbox to play in." So they just need to improve on this part and maybe made the next Elder Scrolls more similiar to Morrowind than try to strip away rpg elements from it. But I don't think Bethesda are able to do that. As you said, back then it was easier, because of the technology was more limited and weak.

[@HydeSkull]

The real blame lies with Sweet Baby Inc. Look it up.

[@janoycresva2279]

bruh did they actually work on starfield?

[@HydeSkull]

@@janoycresva2279 Probably. That company is responsible for lots of game devs 'going woke'. Look into it.

[@RedhoodBeyond]

​@@janoycresva2279no they didn't

[@DWH84]

I have no fondness for my first Skyrim savegame. It was just released, played it on Xbox 360 until the Empire/Stormcloak hold battles crashed the game everytime and prevented me from going any further in the main questline. I heard that was a common bug, and also ever-increasing lag with a 60+ hours save, like a compounding memory leak or something. It definitely did not just work.

[@Nova-rd3hi]

13:46 Yeah- no. Bethesda completely ignored and butchered the lore and history of the Nords when they made Skyrim. Skyrim in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is almost nothing like how it was describe in previous Elder Scrolls games, and what was described in previous Elder Scrolls games is just a lot cooler than what we actually got in The Elder Scrolls V. The Nords originally had their own pantheon of gods with Shor/Lorkhan being the head of it where as in Elder Scrolls V, they all just worship the Imperial pantheon for no reason and they're obsessed with Talos for no reason despite him not being one of their gods.

[@LandStrider23]

I hate Emil's time skips. One of the most annoying tropes modern "writers" use to excuse poor narrative design choices

[@m1lehighmagic]

Man, if there was ever a video that the people at Bethesda needed to watch, it’s this one. Great video, Matty!

[@obba40]

Morrowind is still the Elder Scrolls game and the best Bethesda Softworks game imo.

[@gs8494]

Pretty much this. Daggerfall showed their ambition, they refined it in Morrowind, Oblivion was good but it was a bit easy compared to Morrowind, Skyrim I loved too but it also felt like it had training wheels. Morrowind is why I view the interior of islands with deep suspicion. 😂

[@playboyfan001]

One of your best videos ever, kinda wanted you to mention their writing and how subpar it is... but the overall message In the video is profound and I couldn't agree more with the closing statements. its a sad state of affairs bgs finds itself in, fingers crossed for the future of fallout & ES.

[@stevenguitink5947]

The problem IMO is that Bethesda's design philosophy has barely budged an inch at least since Oblivion. They don't create living breathing RPGs, they create theme park RPGs. The worlds are gorgeous and allow the players to create stories, but they're designed to eke out small instances of fun in contained scenarios. There's little reactivity in their worlds because that might set limitations on the player. Canterbury Commons in Fallout 3 has little to no effect on the broader Capital Wasteland, the Daedric Invasion has no real effect on the broader worldscape of Cyrodiil, the civil war has barely any real effect on the world of Skyrim outside of scripted events. Their main plots are mostly bland because their worlds are open-ended and don't create limitations for multiple playthroughs. Fallout 4 for me was my dropoff moment. And now with 76 and Starfield, I feel like I made the right choice. Bethesda won't change. They can't. They're too set in their ways and convinced of their infallibility. I dread to think what will become of EG6 at this point.

[@CodeineCoffee]

I think Skyrim was such a good game that Bethesda decided to rest on their laurels, not to mention that many people who were involved in Skyrim have left the company. It’s definitely a ship of Theseus scenario at Bethesda today.

[@samcurmudgeon]

Todd's comments about the immersiveness of the world, of watching the sunset, as a "hallmark" of a BGS game is fascinating given that THE BGS game that gives you that is Skyrim VR - but Skyrim VR was such a neglected port by Bethesda, a "here, let's port it and the modders can fix it" effort.

[@DarkeningDemise]

Shallow surface level fun is all Bethesda knows anymore. It's the core issue on top of Emil still being a writer.

[@aligillani7107]

That I liked very much. Matty start doing these kind of videos more often where you deep delve into core philosophies and mechanics of studios and discuss their potential weak points or strengths.

[@VampiricBard]

Yea same

[@tylergreen441]

If TES VI took us to a previously unexplored province of Tamriel in in 2018 with: - Improved graphics, - Better combat, - Better writing for questlines, - Better writing for companions, - More agency in quests, - Fewer bugs, & - The ability to play with another person, I would have been in heaven! Even now, those are probably the most important wish list items for me. As TES VI is under development, I hope Starfield’s lackluster performance doesn’t cause BGS to lose sight of the fundamentals that made Skyrim special. It only takes a little spice to improve the Elder Scrolls formula, and I think that’s why people anticipate modding projects like Beyond Skyrim & Skyblivion so much.

[@JimSamable]

I've spent about 30 hours in Starfield, started a NG+, and I'm really enjoying it. One of the things I truly loved about Fallout 4 and Skyrim is, as you said, being able to just go explore in any direction. The exploration aspect of Skyrim was why I spent hundred of hours literally walking from point A to B and diving into any dungeon I came across. In a game based on space exploration, I wish there was more free roam exploration on more densely populated planets.

[@Jeanssj98]

the problem is that the content of starfield itself is way worse than fallout 4 and skyrim content, you can go and explore in any direction, but all you is going to find is mediocre content

[@Jeanssj98]

@@TheMchunney74 the problem is that the content of starfield itself is way worse than fallout 4 and skyrim content, you can go and explore in any direction, but all you is going to find is mediocre content

[@alllovemark]

There was zero vision for this game besides copy no mans sky and somehow make it more boring.

[@MrEffinBest]

It breaks my heart a little but I'm pretty much done with Bethesda. They don't know how to make interesting games anymore and now that they expect us to wait 15 plus years between TES releases? I'm sorry but that's insane. I've loved their games for years, but it time to move on.

[@RenegadeVash]

Bethesda is also ruining skyrim. They constantly update the game to force a cash shop into a decade plus old game SCREWING OVER MODS. It has cause so many mods to be out of date due to the long span which were 90% of those thousand hour experience. This is also not even mentioning anniversary edition debacle which re-ordered file location in game causing many mods to be completely recoded to work properly.

[@IcepickEddie]

skyrim- great, fallout 4- good, 76- garbage, starfield- waste of time.

[@RedhoodBeyond]

This is pretty accurate

[@TheBlackRose3]

Very well put together Matty, I hope that Bethesda approaches ES6 as a return to fundamentals. F76 and Starfield are a nice change of pace, but it's time to return to what made Skyrim so terrific.

[@LoftOfTheUniverse]

If you think those are acceptable games... you're part of the problem. We need to expect more.

[@acev3521]

@@LoftOfTheUniverse76 was honestly better than 4

[@LoftOfTheUniverse]

@@acev3521 I disliked both.

[@noahwoodley3964]

This might be one of your best videos yet Matty, an excellent analysis of Bethesda that only comes after a decade of study. Very well done and I hope you have an amazing holiday break, you deserve it

[@user-dj9iu2et3r]

Would be nice if he edited the videos with a little more… effort?

[@MrFoxtrot130]

Once modders said that this game is "F****N trash", i lost any hope that this game can be salvaged.

[@Euler13]

When I first started with this video I was a little cynical, but you were on the money with so much. The point about Preston Garvey's endless quests in Fallout 4 being an example of Bethesda not properly understanding what gamers enjoy was so insightful. Great video, Matty. One bit of advice, though. The title of the video: How Skyrim Ruined Bethesda, sounds like Skyrim was the start of Bethesda losing their way rather than the end of them creating almost perfect games. A better title would be How Skyrim's Success Caused Bethesda to Lose They Way.

[@liverpoolfc1023]

Hopefully we see in 10 years time how elders scroll 6 saved Bethesda !! 😅

[@TrojanGamer10]

...you say that as if Bethesda is dying. And it's not. Starfield is one of the best selling games this year and it's on Game Pass so I doubt that's "dying".

[@Owl_Coup_Productions]

They aren't dying they've become stagnant which is worse than death. So much potential going unfulfilled.

[@liverpoolfc1023]

@@TrojanGamer10I don’t think they’re dying I just hope it’s good my dude

[@Jackraiden500]

I'm not holding my breath. Every bethesda game since at least morrowind has gotten consistently streamlined in favor of mass appeal. I loved skyrim and oblivion but it's clear as day to anyone that doesn't sniff todd howards farts that they are falling off, and have been for ages. I will be more than happy to be proven wrong later, but I doubt that will happen.

[@shivasanjeevmana]

@@TrojanGamer10 lol your interptetation of this comment speaks volumes, the guy is just riffing on the title of this video. No need to run hall of fame defense.

[@joevader10]

Lots of good points here, this was a lovely breakdown of your thoughts and I tend to agree. I would rather have fewer locations with a richer connection between them than a mass of procedural content and random loot.

[@SynthLizard8]

I've gone from Bethesda are incompetent with Fallout 4, cynical and greedy with 76 and Creation Club to being both with Starfield and the incoming Creation Club. They don't really give a shit anymore and even if they did, they still can't even utilize their engine properly when compared to how modders are able to make their own content bug free and one of my favourite mods is optimizing the game's textures that look better but also boost the performance.

[@allforhim2009]

Look at Bethesda as the band you used to love, but hung on too long. They had a few hits, released their masterpiece with Skyrim, then kept trying to recapture the magic, but never will.

[@KoongYe]

My pet peeve on Bethesda studio is their constant fixation on "realism" as opposed to making a fun world. My favorite game ever is ES4: Oblivion. The game is admittedly janky in places but as a whole the game gives a sense of wonderment, like you actually are in a fantasy world setting. In Fallout 4, or Starfield none of the sense of adventure is to be found. Even in Skyrim, they dialed the realism quite a bit higher than in Oblivion and Morrowind and its worse for it. Like for instance, the removal of acrobatics. No one wants to play an open world game to live the same boring world they already live in. We play it to escape from the reality, and yet Bethesda is constantly not getting the message.

[@Titan-zp7ex]

Holy shit Matty its like you read my mind that's crazy I 100% agree with this video all the reason why I don't like Fallout 4 to Starfield are in this video thanks for bringing the loot up I feel like uniques like the Mace of Molug Bal or Push Push don't exist or don't matter in their newer games.

[@scorpio69poison74]

If Skyrim didn't do so great because of the mod creators yeah it's time we should blame them they are the reason why Elder Scrolls 6 is not out so if Skyrim did bad or all right or okay we would technically be headed into Elder Scrolls 9 or 10 but still I blame the mod creators.

[@robertshockjr6570]

Massive world's takes a bunch of time why GTA 6 isn't out

[@lordfizzz]

What

[@robertshockjr6570]

@@lordfizzz it takes a really long time to develop open world RPGs with today's current graphics

[@mattc7420]

I'm relieved to hear the nuances in this video. Matty doesn't wanna say Bethesda is a villain, but everyone watching and commenting will...

[@Marcoffs83]

They're not..Their fanboys are actually the issue here. When you praise someone no matter the quality of their work, this is the result. Enjoy Crapfield.

[@mattc7420]

​@@Marcoffs83 why are you getting hostile about a videogame?

[@awereal]

For me, I can no longer tolerate the way BGS conduct their business. All those Skyrim re-releases and yet no bugs fixed that I ever saw. No performance or stability improvements (every single edition of Skyrim has CTDed on me, every single one). Just some minor fiddling so they can put a few sentences in their release notes. All the while they are raking in millions. Also, nexus mods can go DIAF.

[@dragonninja3655]

"You can't have realistic, pretty graphics and interactivity". Have you seen the cyberpunk 2077 vs. Starfield comparisons? You can definitely have both. They would just need an updated or new eigene.

[@MSDGAMEZ]

Skyrim was just so packed with awesome encounters. You walk for seconds and find something to do.

[@zacharymurdock8215]

I really think that Starfield needed another year or two of development before its systems and content got locked down and they went into bug fixing mode. Beyond the points that Matty mentioned, 76, COVID, and Todd bouncing around between 5 studios did not help matters. There a lot of systems, for example the brigs and em weapons, that could have been utilized to give alternative means to complete missions. Or put in new systems like faction rep to make the world feel more reactive to the player's efforts. Lore content feels missing, what Matty said about locations having purpose is spot on. There are some locations in Starfield that do that, but many don't, especially the dynamic POIs. I also think BGS dropped the ball with the alien temples, they should have been full dungeons.

[@inuclearpickle8628]

I don’t think another year could of fixed the design issues. If star field was narrowed in scoped a couple really refined worlds instead of vast universe would of been better. After I’d be hammering the gameplay loop and gameplay and probably better presentation of dialogue as it’s framed horribly in star field

[@zacharymurdock8215]

@@inuclearpickle8628 It depends on the map size of those worlds. Part of the BGS model is small very dense maps. Its the whole "That looks cool. I'll got there aspect" and allows for the stumble across neat things. Yeah, Starfield couldn't do that with the way its setup, but I would argue that the idea of a 1000 worlds isn't bad in itself. Other older games have done it (Starflight and Star Control). What was needed were new gameloops that are fun and rewarding using a huge game space (for example No Man's Sky does) but still keep the RPG/story rich appeal (which NMS is lacking).

[@moonlightillari]

The true beauty of this video is your discussion on the topic of Simulation v Experience, I was 12 when I played Skyrim on release and the memories connected to every individual story that was crafted with such intricacy is what truly made me fall in love. I will always remember going into the sewers of Riften and coming out a acolyte of Nocturnal, discovering the Wabbajack and the wild mind of Sheogorath, unearthing Serana from her crypt and first stepping foot in Castle Volkihar, and stealing every key and cheese wheel I come across lol

[@GuitarSlingerPK]

I think Bethesda has been watering down the complexity of their games since Morrowind to widen their appeal, and they found tremendous success in doing so. I don't see that ever changing when they financially perform well, even amidst poor reception critically. For the early on millions of fans who are now turned away, there are hundreds of millions of new and potential fans who know nothing of our criticism and don't care to hear them because that was 20 years ago. I think that (the desire to broaden their appeal) has more to do with their current perception from old fans than anything else.

[@samuellund1377]

They're not going to learn their lesson, and I am preparing myself for the ES6 disappointment 😞

[@brandonsaunders5892]

Starfield should have had Aliens races. Where you can create your own alien character, Alien settlements stuff like that

[@5226-p1e]

here is my theory, bethesda released this game as an early access game which means the story isn't really finished, it's finished for the early access version of the game but their plan includes fixing the story for later DLC's sold in order to fix the game at the same time. now i doubt they will be able to fix load screen walking simulator parts of the game, but the story will be expanded on and my guess is they are going to add in aliens within one of these DLC's that will eventually come out and it will dramatically change the vanilla story into something else.

[@ZephrusPrime]

Skyrim didn't ruin Bethesda. It was Todd saying that he didn't want their studio to be only known for TES and Fall Out.

[@gman7497]

That's admirable but you have to have the tech and know-how to realize your vision. A massive space game like Starfield is trying to be is simply not possible on their current engine without huge compromises.

[@T2G_Scoop]

I started playing through Skyrim again for the first time since like 2012. About 50-60 hours in and it’s still just as amazing as i remember it.

[@macdaddysteeze1659]

Skyrims pretty graphics tricks you at first but after playing for a few hours you realize just how shallow and souless the game really is, by the way i love interactions in skyrim , three whole dialog options that is yes, no or intimidate ahhhhh yeah bethesda soooo deep really took there writting to the next level with that installment 🙄

[@maineman5757]

Skyrim blowing up made them complacent in a way. Bethesda was great, but they needed more time to refine their laurels for new gaming generations. FO76 was such a mistep that I feel it actually wasted their valuable time to focus on something greater conceptually.

[@sirdaemon5338]

Spot on Matty. I think they tried their best but just did not get that most of us love creating a new character and starting a fresh playthrough prefreably with an alternative start after the first run. not repeat the same experience.

[@brunogrande9826]

Bethesda needs to hire some good writers AFUCKINGSAP, their stories has been always shit but other aspects of their game would always camouflauge that part. Now that the industry is changing, they can`t keep giving us the same stories over and over.

[@grandfathernurgle2840]

I'd argue even having actual rpg mechanics would compensate for the writing to some degree. It's the fact that similar to Starfield a future Elder Scrolls or Fallout 5 will be devoid of substance much like Starfield.

[@TrojanGamer10]

Dude...give your tastes in films...you have no position to talk about a Bethesda game's writing. Just saying. I think people will remember Starfield over some film about a priest fighting a demon because those NEVER existed before!

[@TrojanGamer10]

You should tell Sony because they haven't released a single brand new idea since Ghost and there is no way in hell you can tell me Sucked Punch wasn't influenced by Assassin's Creed

[@grandfathernurgle2840]

@@TrojanGamer10 Starfield was DOA as someone who enjoyed Fallout 3 and Skyrim and would play them to this day, I wasn't even excited when they announced Starfield. This is an issue many games from total war, cod, assassins' creed, etc. all seem to forget the desire of consumers to have a finished product with depth that doesn't dumb down mechanics just to appeal to casual gamers.

[@brunogrande9826]

@@TrojanGamer10 Lol Ok fanboy

[@Captainflacon]

Music, atmospheric sound, weather, varying terrain and the fluidity of traveling are what in my opinion really push Skyrim over the edge into masterpiece territory