I’m honestly baffled as to why people have had any faith in Bethesda Game Studios for years. Even if you liked Fallout 3 or 4, what they did with 76 should’ve obliterated any remaining trust.
Fallout 4 releases and it’s disappointing but it’s okay because it’s just a blip. They had some good new ideas in there, they were just balanced out in the other direction by a lot of bad ones. Bethesda’s track record is still solid, if somewhat tarnished.
Fallout 76 releases and it’s disappointing but that’s because they’ve never made (and shouldn’t have made) an MMO before. A lot of the coverage is centred around the shoddy launch, which doesn’t really matter for a non-MMO title.
F4 has only had staying power simply because of the modding community. It’s succeeded despite Bethesda. Modders took an extremely mediocre game and made it something much more rich and interesting.
The problems is that’s not what Fallout is. It’s not a settlement sim. But when I played F4 for the first time, it felt just like Fallout Shelter with a quest tacked onto it, which is not at all what I wanted. Especially the way the game strongly pushes you into the Minutemen. It makes it extremely tedious for a new player. After the first time, I walked away from the game and didn’t come back to it for over a year. I decided to give it a go and completely ignored the Minutemen, and it was such a better game. But you have to know you can do that.
Also it wasn’t until modding was opened up that the settlement system got good, IMO.
It’s crazy to me how close that system was to being great and then seeing what they did with outposts in Starfield. While I didn’t really care for how it worked in vanilla, the ability to customize your base was awesome. Babysitting settlements was a chore, but SimSettlements fixes that. Starfield you can’t do much to customize it and it essentially useless from a mechanics standpoint, except for grinding a bunch of levels by cheesing time compression planets, but I’ll just use the console if I want to do that.
The problem with Starfield’s settlements is that they are entirely resource mining operations. They aren’t really settlements in the way Fallout’s are. You have to spend a phenomenal amount of time to get the perks needed to make it even remotely useful or manageable, and by the time you get there, it’s not even worth it (which is true for most of Starfield’s mechanics, IMO).
As you mentioned, they didn’t make ESO. Entirely different studios involved in the two games. They probably should have spent some time with the Zenimax developers before trying FO76 though.
But at the same time, most of the people who played Fallout 3 never played 1 or 2. By the standards of the time, and for what the game presented itself as, it was pretty cool.
As someone who went to the midnight launch of Skyrim and finished the main quest that night, ever since that moment I’ve been disappointed in Bethesda’s direction. Skyrim was fairly uninteresting, though the mods now can bring it some life (but still can’t make it as good as Morrowind, especially the huge UI downgrade we got with the switch to consoles). Fallout 4 does have some redeeming qualities I think, though generally it was also disappointing. Starfield is the last piece I think most people needed to wake up and see that they don’t want to make good games anymore. They only care about making a game they can market to as many people as possible, so they can’t do anything interesting with it.
The issue is most Bethesda has made at least one of many people’s favorite games. Many of the people behind them still work at the company, so they could do it again. I think there’s always some hope they can look at what makes games good (both their own and things like Baulder’s Gate 3) and realize making generic crap isn’t going to cut it anymore. It worked for Skyrim and somewhat for FO4 (though that still has some fairly unique aspects), but people have so many options for better games.
I was weirdly forgiving of Fallout 76 (never played it, I’m not too hot for multiplayer games) because it was made so soon after fallout 4. It always felt like one of those DLC that got so large that it got released as a standalone game, which practically any large game studio has done and Bethesda did with Arcane’s Dishonored 2 and Death of the Outsider.
A huge soft spot I have for the elder scrolls comes from the heroic fantasy exploration with enormous orchestral music and adventure in every direction, something people say about Starfield is that it’s large and sparse, which is accurate for a grounded space game but goes against what makes half of Bethesda games fun. Fallout falls in the middle of the pack being far more pulpy than Starfield and in 4, I feel this was a large issue with it feeling bland; it’s pulpy wackiness was toned down when it should have gone up.
I don’t expect Bethesda to give me the video game equivalent of game of thrones but I do expect the Saturday morning cartoon that I’m equally fond of, and they still hold all the ingredients to make that recipe. Unfortunately Starfield was always tonally wrong for that, but ES6 is perfect for it.
Don’t get me wrong, I’ll still only buy ES6 a year or so after release, maybe 2-3 if it’s really crap, but I think a fair few of the ways that they’ve deviated from the working formula post Skyrim may not be an issue here.
I’m at the stage where you stop complaining about videogames and you just stop buying them.
I’ve realised that all the people who worked in the videogames industry that made it special have either sold out, dropped out, or aged out at this point. Keep your expectations low my friends.
Meanwhile I actually like fallout 76, I was thinking about playing starfield but after watching my friend play it, for about 14 hours before we realized it was a dry well, I’ve given up on Bethesda ever making anything that might appeal to me ever again
I’m honestly baffled as to why people have had any faith in Bethesda Game Studios for years. Even if you liked Fallout 3 or 4, what they did with 76 should’ve obliterated any remaining trust.
It did for me. Haven’t touched anything new of theirs since.
F4 has only had staying power simply because of the modding community. It’s succeeded despite Bethesda. Modders took an extremely mediocre game and made it something much more rich and interesting.
FO4 settlement mechanism is amazing. It’s literally a 1st person city builder. I can’t think of any game similar to that yet.
The problems is that’s not what Fallout is. It’s not a settlement sim. But when I played F4 for the first time, it felt just like Fallout Shelter with a quest tacked onto it, which is not at all what I wanted. Especially the way the game strongly pushes you into the Minutemen. It makes it extremely tedious for a new player. After the first time, I walked away from the game and didn’t come back to it for over a year. I decided to give it a go and completely ignored the Minutemen, and it was such a better game. But you have to know you can do that.
Also it wasn’t until modding was opened up that the settlement system got good, IMO.
It’s crazy to me how close that system was to being great and then seeing what they did with outposts in Starfield. While I didn’t really care for how it worked in vanilla, the ability to customize your base was awesome. Babysitting settlements was a chore, but SimSettlements fixes that. Starfield you can’t do much to customize it and it essentially useless from a mechanics standpoint, except for grinding a bunch of levels by cheesing time compression planets, but I’ll just use the console if I want to do that.
The problem with Starfield’s settlements is that they are entirely resource mining operations. They aren’t really settlements in the way Fallout’s are. You have to spend a phenomenal amount of time to get the perks needed to make it even remotely useful or manageable, and by the time you get there, it’s not even worth it (which is true for most of Starfield’s mechanics, IMO).
Fallout New Vegas was made by Obsidian
i know but i’m roleplaying a semi-informed fan
i think it’s fair to say that at least a portion of bethesda’s reputation is built off that game
Elder scrolls online??? They didn’t “make” it, but they were damn familar with the mmo scene.
As you mentioned, they didn’t make ESO. Entirely different studios involved in the two games. They probably should have spent some time with the Zenimax developers before trying FO76 though.
Fallout 3 was garbage compared to Fallout 1 and 2
Fallout 3 isn’t even comparable to the originals, it’s a completely different game.
The story, the world and the roleplaying are comparable and Fallout 3 is way worse in that regard. New Vegas reached the old heights again.
NV is overrated, the writing of the originals was on another level
Agree to disagree.
Only as far as storyline and setting go. Other than that, it was an okay shooter.
Yeah… but storyline and setting is what made Fallout so great.
But at the same time, most of the people who played Fallout 3 never played 1 or 2. By the standards of the time, and for what the game presented itself as, it was pretty cool.
As someone who went to the midnight launch of Skyrim and finished the main quest that night, ever since that moment I’ve been disappointed in Bethesda’s direction. Skyrim was fairly uninteresting, though the mods now can bring it some life (but still can’t make it as good as Morrowind, especially the huge UI downgrade we got with the switch to consoles). Fallout 4 does have some redeeming qualities I think, though generally it was also disappointing. Starfield is the last piece I think most people needed to wake up and see that they don’t want to make good games anymore. They only care about making a game they can market to as many people as possible, so they can’t do anything interesting with it.
The issue is most Bethesda has made at least one of many people’s favorite games. Many of the people behind them still work at the company, so they could do it again. I think there’s always some hope they can look at what makes games good (both their own and things like Baulder’s Gate 3) and realize making generic crap isn’t going to cut it anymore. It worked for Skyrim and somewhat for FO4 (though that still has some fairly unique aspects), but people have so many options for better games.
I was weirdly forgiving of Fallout 76 (never played it, I’m not too hot for multiplayer games) because it was made so soon after fallout 4. It always felt like one of those DLC that got so large that it got released as a standalone game, which practically any large game studio has done and Bethesda did with Arcane’s Dishonored 2 and Death of the Outsider.
A huge soft spot I have for the elder scrolls comes from the heroic fantasy exploration with enormous orchestral music and adventure in every direction, something people say about Starfield is that it’s large and sparse, which is accurate for a grounded space game but goes against what makes half of Bethesda games fun. Fallout falls in the middle of the pack being far more pulpy than Starfield and in 4, I feel this was a large issue with it feeling bland; it’s pulpy wackiness was toned down when it should have gone up.
I don’t expect Bethesda to give me the video game equivalent of game of thrones but I do expect the Saturday morning cartoon that I’m equally fond of, and they still hold all the ingredients to make that recipe. Unfortunately Starfield was always tonally wrong for that, but ES6 is perfect for it.
Don’t get me wrong, I’ll still only buy ES6 a year or so after release, maybe 2-3 if it’s really crap, but I think a fair few of the ways that they’ve deviated from the working formula post Skyrim may not be an issue here.
This 💯🔥
I’m at the stage where you stop complaining about videogames and you just stop buying them.
I’ve realised that all the people who worked in the videogames industry that made it special have either sold out, dropped out, or aged out at this point. Keep your expectations low my friends.
Meanwhile I actually like fallout 76, I was thinking about playing starfield but after watching my friend play it, for about 14 hours before we realized it was a dry well, I’ve given up on Bethesda ever making anything that might appeal to me ever again