Is Bethesda stagnating?

[Dansen]

Warning: rambling fallout 4 rant

Spoiler

I really enjoyed fallout 4, but something always niggles at me when I play and that is the fact that it feels so samey. Nothing supper meaningful has been added to the game aside from a few enemy behavior scripts and a couple of damage variants. I would be able to ignore this if the story was great but its just mediocre, some interesting ideas are brought up but are never given a chance to flesh out. I seriously hate the main story(all of the finding shaun stuff). Giving you a family severely limits the roleplaying options you have. I have no problem being a pre-war human as there could have been loads of more interesting interactions, you could have been a criminal, a scientist or even a handy man set loose upon the wastes. But no, you are just a parent trying to find their kid, it just feels lake a lazy attempt to get you invested. I feel the main character of the Fallout games should always be the world, not the player character. I'm not sure if the game was trying to appeal to mass audiences, rushed out the door or if it was just pure laziness.

I'm sure it looks like I hate the game from everything I typed, yet despite all the annoyances I still like the game. Probably because I love the universe of Fallout. I'm really sad that things went sour with Obsidian because at least I would be able to look forward to a great spin off.

Fallout 4 rant over

Now aside from my grievances with the latest fallout there are a couple of other things that just seem half assed to me and feel like a marked decline in quality.
-Lack of a new game engine for F4. If they don't update for the next elder scrolls they are going to have serious problems.
-Skyrim remastered. This just leaves an awful taste in my mouth since they are just re-releasing something modders have already been able to do at full price on consoles. Not to mention it isn't an old game.
-Meanwhile there are fans doing a Morrowind remaster for free and Bethesda have given them no real support aside from their consent. If the project ever gets finished they will enjoy some free pocket money while simultaneously getting good PR.
-Only two story DLCs, a trend carrying over from Skyrim. With no signs of a "Broken Steel" follow-up to the main story.

Has Bethesda always been like this and I'm just noticing now, or are they actually dropping in quality/effort?

 

[God'sFist]

when it comes to today's gaming companies they don't care about their player base anymore. They care about their bottom line. Unfortunately that means less quality and more things for broader audiences. It sucks but hey it's 2016 welcome to the corporate future where your money is all your here for.

 

[sXeth]

I'd say they've been stagnating for a good long while now. The shuffling carcass of Gamerbryo definately should've stayed in the last decade.

On the flip side, they're doing pretty good as publishers. Dishonored, New Vegas, Wolfenstein : New Order, Doom, even Elder SCrolls : Online (amusingly doesn't use the gamebryo engine, and I'm including it because it wasn't the stanard Bethesda team) all received mostly positive, if not outright great reviews.

That is, in terms of general acclaim. There's a fair few tales of shady handling related to some of their published works, along with some dumb moves like trying to trademark "Scrolls".

 

[aozgolo]

They are stagnating when it comes to experimentation with their core franchises yes, and this is really only noticeable because of how far they originally pushed the envelope and became trend setters with Morrowind being completely unlike anything that came before.

-Lack of a new game engine for F4. If they don't update for the next elder scrolls they are going to have serious problems.

New Engines are not that simple to nail down. The Creation Engine was their first in-house engine developed in a long time, Morrowind, Oblivion, and Fallout 3 all used the Gamebryo Engine which was licensed, not created by Bethesda. Since they put a lot of effort into making their own proprietary engine, it makes sense they'd want to use it for more than a single game, hence why we see is for Skyrim and Fallout 4. Something major happened between these 2 releases however, and that was the rise in 64-Bit, which drastically increased the potential for this engine if it was only redesigned to support 64-Bit.

-Skyrim remastered. This just leaves an awful taste in my mouth since they are just re-releasing something modders have already been able to do at full price on consoles. Not to mention it isn't an old game.

This is hardly something to be concerned about, Skyrim Remastered is not something that requires a huge investment of resources on Bethesda's part, with upgrading the Creation Engine to 64 Bit, 90% of the work has already been done, many of the textures already exist in high resolution, there would only need to be some minor effect tweaking and potentially some bug fixing to do to make Skyrim Remastered possible, it would take a small team of about 10 people a period of probably 6 months to accomplish this. Is it just a quick cash grab? Of course, it's a way to re-sell Skyrim for modern consoles, and provide consoles with the graphical and modding potential that PCs already had, hence why it's being sold for consoles and given to PC for free.

As for why do Skyrim and not an older game? It was already a Creation Engine game, meaning it required far less to make it work, it's not even really a remaster, just an engine update with higher textures and console mod support. If they did Oblivion, Morrowind, Fallout 3 or any other game it would require the entire team an entire development cycle to remaster and rebuild the game practically from scratch.

-Meanwhile there are fans doing a Morrowind remaster for free and Bethesda have given them no real support aside from their consent. If the project ever gets finished they will enjoy some free pocket money while simultaneously getting good PR.

The Morrowind Remaster for all it's incredible achievements and it's community, is still just another Skyrim overhaul mod, and while Bethesda I am sure would love to gush on and on about their favorite mods and overhauls, doing so runs a lot of risk, both from a PR standpoint, and a legal one. It's a murky territory, and in a time when 9 out of 10 game companies send cease and desist letters to shut down fan made projects, the fact that Bethesda has given Skywind their blessing is all that I could truly ask from them.

-Only two story DLCs, a trend carrying over from Skyrim. With no signs of a "Broken Steel" follow-up to the main story.

Evidence for the divisive player-base of Bethesda RPGs has perhaps never been more apparent than with Fallout 4, for every person crying foul over Fallout's DLC focus on the settlement system, there's another person (such as myself) who really enjoys it and is happy Bethesda has given us this content. It's a case of not being able to please everyone, and Bethesda I don't think should attempt to please everyone with each DLC, sure we may have been spoiled with the amount of story based DLC in Fallout 3, but Skyrim's Hearthfire DLC and more importantly, the modding community proved there was a demand for the type of sandbox building environment that gave rise to the Settlement System in Fallout 4. Could the stories and sandbox elements be improved? Absolutely, and I believe Bethesda takes this criticism to heart when going forward, but at the same time they have to make the game they want to make, and attempting to court every possible player is just going to end in disaster.

Has Bethesda always been like this and I'm just noticing now, or are they actually dropping in quality/effort?

Bethesda will keep doing what they do best, which is make huge open world sandbox RPGs filled with content. I can't speak for everyone, but I've not been disappointed by any of their Elder Scrolls or Fallout games to date. If you follow the news for Bethesda you will see they've said they have 2 BIG projects underway they have yet to announce that will be done before they ever do The Elder Scrolls 6. This is actually a very good thing for all but the most impatient of us. This allows Bethesda to get their creativity back, to boldly experiment with new ideas and new game mechanics and try them out on us with two new IPs without running the risk of that experimentation blowing up in one of their flagship franchises. These new IPs will not only allow them to try new ideas but further hone their development talents and give them time to create a new engine for the next Elder Scrolls.

Because of this long gap they have planned, it makes sense that they would extend their Fallout 4 DLC right up until before they release Skyrim Remastered to give us some Fallout and TES fix before they shelf both for awhile. I think by the time we see The Elder Scrolls and Fallout again, that they will both be groundbreaking and I have little worry of them being stagnant.

 

[RedDeadFred]

While I hate the amount of workshop DLC for Fallout 4, I understand that there are actually a lot of people who love the settlement stuff. Still, I'm glad I didn't get the season pass since Far Harbor has been the only DLC I was interested in. Even that one still feels quite small with not a lot to do.

Having said that, as an actual gameplay experience, Fallout 4 feels a lot better than 3, so I'd hardly say they've stagnated. They just aren't focusing on improving the same things they used to. It's unfortunate for people like you and me OP, but given the sales of their games, the masses obviously love what they're doing.

 

[Fox12]

I don't hate Bethesda, but I have grown bored of them. I don't think their games have necessarily gotten worse. Heck, their gameplay has gotten better. I just can't be bothered to explore yet another sewer. Maybe they've failed to evolve. Maybe I'm just sick of their brand of open world games. Either way, I don't think I'll be buying any more of their games.

 

[WolfThomas]

What annoys me about Fallout 3 and Fallout 4 is that a lot of the setting doesn't make sense when you pay attention. Like it's 200years since the bombs dropped (a long time) and you still find houses with pre-war stuff. It should have rusted/rotted or been picked up by scavengers. The idea that people are still wearing old world clothing or rags. Fallout 1 was only I think some 70years after the bombs dropped and it didn't really have much of that. People were making new clothing and building new houses.

It's like the bottle caps. In fallout 1 they were currency because they represented water and were controlled by the powerful water merchants. In Fallout 2 they have minted gold coins and in New Vegas they show that there's three currencies NCR paper money, Legion gold and silver, and bottle caps backed by the Cattle and Water Merchants when the NCR dollar dropped once gold ran out. In Fallout 3 and 4 it's just bottlecaps universally as money, no explanation. Heck Fallout Tactics makes more sense, they have BoS paper money internally and ring pulls backed by several very large settlements' traders. The ring pulls are useless though with BoS and BoS script useless with newly discovered cities.

I really like the vibe they were trying to go for, with the Minutemen and Diamond city. But I kind a wish that Boston had become some retro-future meets colonial era clash. Men with hair in powdered tails, wearing long coats and britches, buckle shoes etc. But shouldering laser muskets and with robot butlers. Like if Diamond city had been a city of new red brick houses built on top of the ruins of the baseball stands. You could still have the humour of the Sole Surivor teaching people about what baseball was or Nick Valentine more out of place dressed as an old world gumshoe.

 

[Saelune]

The Elder Scrolls is their mark of quality. Its theirs. Fallout is an adopted series, and I dont think they care as much. Id wait for TES 6 before deciding.

Oblivion came out after Morrowind, but Skyrim came out after Oblivion, so we cannot be certain.

 

[aozgolo]

snip

Even Pre-Bethesda, Fallout has existed in the campy valley where you're not supposed to look too closely at the strings holding it all together, lest they unravel. Bethesda certainly did no favors to reinforce those strings, but instead took the campy elements and ran with it. I still think it works if you go in with the whole retro-campy sci-fi 1950s Futurism goggles on and don't examine too closely. That being said, they have always presented a ridiculous setting but chosen to play their stories straight with the drama, it's an odd mix, and it's perhaps what throws some people off. They are given these dark stories about saving their village, finding their lost dad, tracking down their kidnapped son, going out for revenge against the man who left you for dead... it's all very serious stuff but then you have to address the heavily mutated elephant in the room.

I'm not saying the campy element is any excuse against fair criticism, Bethesda certainly isn't showing off Obsidian or Interplay's level of writing, not saying it's bad, but hard to compare against. I've just kind of settled into it though, and come to realize that Bethesda RPGs are best enjoyed if you don't take them too seriously and don't come in for the plot.

 

[spartandude]

Heck, their gameplay has gotten better.

I would say that their combat mechanics have gotten better, but everything else has gotten worse. Their writing, role playing, questing (skyrim was terrible there) and to a lesser extent exploration have suffered so much lately. I no longer feel compelled to explore since I know everything is going to lead to the same combat and each town (in their fallout games) is just one gimmick and nothing else to it.
I don't feel like a character in the world they've made anymore. Just some one that kills things a little better than others. And this has led to my general disinterest. I say just compare the variety of encounters (and how they can be solved) you can get in New Vegas, Morrowind and Oblivion to things like Fallout 3, Skyrim and Fallout 4. Its ridiculous.

 

[Gethsemani_v1legacy]

Aozgolo wrote an awesome post up there at #4, but I'll add a few things that should be kept in mind:
1. Game engines are expensive, labor intensive and take a long time to create. That's why they tend to stick around and why Bethesda is unlikely to drop The Creation Engine for a while yet, since they are likely banking on getting at least a decades worth of games out of it. For all its' faults (like only being 32-bit and shoddy animations) it does many very impressive things though. Like the fact that I can pick up a coffee cup in Sanctuary and then drop it into my budding fort of cups at the Quincy Quarry. There's so many impressive things in that example alone, like the sheer amount of "clutter" that the player can interact with, that the game remembers which items have been interacted with or picked up and then remembers where they were put down and how. Creation Engine is still a marvelous engine for the kind of games Bethesda is making.

2. Bethesda is all about iteration. Take a look at Morrowind, Oblivion, Fallout 3, Skyrim and Fallout 4 in that order. You will undoubtedly see that a lot of things have changed but remained. From the attribute/skill system becoming more and more streamlined from "lots of numbers with incremental skill increase" to "every choice matters", to the expanded focus on players having a "home" in the world, with increasingly more options to customize that home. Skyrim and Fallout 4 are quite close in terms of skill system iteration, but Fallout 4 instead gives you massively expanded options to not only create a home but entire settlements.

While certain parts of Bethesda's games have seen less iteration over the years (ie. the skill system), other parts have gotten a much expanded scope (weapon crafting, settlement building). Not to mention that for all its' flaws and plot holes, the main story of Fallout 4 is the most ambitious main story from Bethesda to date. It provides no less then 4 separate, unique end states and something like a dozen unique paths to get to them (ranging from "BoS all the way" to "going institute then double crossing them for the Railroad"). Bethesda aren't stagnating by any metric, but they are obviously shifting their focus in terms of what they consider important to iterate on.

 

[3asytarg3t]

OP,

Yes, Bethesda has been making the same game for more than a decade, not exactly a well kept secret either, in fact I'd even go so far as to suggest they appear rather proud of that fact.

Change setting, rinse repeat.

 

[Fox12]

Heck, their gameplay has gotten better.

I would say that their combat mechanics have gotten better, but everything else has gotten worse. Their writing, role playing, questing (skyrim was terrible there) and to a lesser extent exploration have suffered so much lately. I no longer feel compelled to explore since I know everything is going to lead to the same combat and each town (in their fallout games) is just one gimmick and nothing else to it.
I don't feel like a character in the world they've made anymore. Just some one that kills things a little better than others. And this has led to my general disinterest. I say just compare the variety of encounters (and how they can be solved) you can get in New Vegas, Morrowind and Oblivion to things like Fallout 3, Skyrim and Fallout 4. Its ridiculous.

I actually liked Fallout 3.

But I agree. I was really mad that they removed the role playing from Fallout 4, and replaced it with a bland dialogue wheel with no interesting options. It's weird to see my half naked bandit dude, covered in blood, start talking in a civil tone when anyone asks a quastion. I liked the Companions and faction system that they clearly took from New Vegas. I liked the massive power armor, and cool Death Claw encounters. Heck, I even kind of liked the settlement system. But the world is so boring. The quest lines are so bland. With Bethesda It's always one step forward, two steps back. They'll add some cool feature, but inevitably they'll fuck up some other, vitally import part of the formula. They add all these bells and whistles, but they mess up all the basic parts of the game.

 

[WolfThomas]

Even Pre-Bethesda, Fallout has existed in the campy valley where you're not supposed to look too closely at the strings holding it all together, lest they unravel. Bethesda certainly did no favors to reinforce those strings, but instead took the campy elements and ran with it. I still think it works if you go in with the whole retro-campy sci-fi 1950s Futurism goggles on and don't examine too closely. That being said, they have always presented a ridiculous setting but chosen to play their stories straight with the drama, it's an odd mix, and it's perhaps what throws some people off. They are given these dark stories about saving their village, finding their lost dad, tracking down their kidnapped son, going out for revenge against the man who left you for dead... it's all very serious stuff but then you have to address the heavily mutated elephant in the room.

I'm not saying the campy element is any excuse against fair criticism, Bethesda certainly isn't showing off Obsidian or Interplay's level of writing, not saying it's bad, but hard to compare against. I've just kind of settled into it though, and come to realize that Bethesda RPGs are best enjoyed if you don't take them too seriously and don't come in for the plot.

In Fallout 1 and 2 the humour was there. Usually in dialogue and easter eggs, but the core games were serious. They hold up a lot better under close scrutiny. I like Elderscrolls game and I don't think Bethesda has problems with their own lore but I think they should have kept Obsidan for their Fallout games (instead of screwing them on their bonuses).

That isn't saying I didn't have fun with Fallout 4 for a while. It's just that part bugs me. I really wish there was a New Vegas equivalent on the horizon with F4's engine.

 

[Redryhno]

Depends on what you consider stagnating. I still think it's great to explore their worlds and the multitudes of dungeons that have their own stories ranging from saturday morning cartoon to midnight Empire of the Sun showings. I'd argue that's just gotten better as the years have gone on.

Their dialogue system definitely suffered in F4, but then again, that's nothing all that new beyond people clamoring for voice-acted stuff, so I personally blame them for dialogue systems going down the shitter more than the devs.

The gunplay was decent, but their sponginess is largely the same as it's been since at least Morrowind when you crank up the difficulty, so again nothing new. Crafting system was the biggest offender I think, it's nice being able to tinker with your weapons and armor, but I really like unique weapons having - if not guaranteed - reliable drop areas/rates and it just felt more like they were trying to tack on Borderlands-esque looting. And who the fuck likes having to go find a dozen epoxy to build a receiver?

Fast Travel is something I see alot of people complaining about, but it's an optional thing, it's not needed to do much other than speed up the process, which is good for people that don't have a huge amount of time to play games.

 

[Misterian]

Bethesda? stagnating? ha! I personally don't think so.

I thought Fallout 4 was great! gameplay wise I think it has better combat than Fallout 3 or New Vegas, leveling up feels much more meaningful, and the writing in my opinion is in many ways on par with New Vegas and even surpasses New Vegas in certain areas.

Maybe I had the advantage of buying the season pass right after I got my copy of the game, enabling me to play all the expansions, but I always had a consistently good time playing every moment of Fallout 4.

Yeah, the radiant quests can be boring and sometimes defending settlements can be tedious, but I kept in mind those things were largely optional and I can ignore them if I want.

I adore all of Bethesda's sandbox RPG's, ever since I first played Fallout 3 I found myself hooked on both Fallout and Elder Scrolls, and I thank Bethesda for that.

With every moment I played Oblivion, Fallout 3, or Skyrim, or any other Bethesda sandbox, I always felt like I was experiencing a unique world where I can be any kind of character I want while choosing any kind of path I want, and Fallout 4 did NOTHING to change that for me.

Heck, if my biggest compliant about Fallout 4 and Skyrim is merely taking away customizable hair color from Oblivion and Fallouts 3 and New Vegas, I think I'm in a good place.

Far as I'm concerned, if I'm consistently enjoying every Elder Scrolls (specifically Oblivion and Skyrim, Morrowind is a mixed bag for me) or Fallout game Bethesda has released, those guys have to be doing something right.

 

[FalloutJack]

Well, sorry, but I liked Fallout 4 (And 3, 2, 1, and NV), so let's just go with "No, not really" and move on.

 

[Kyrian007]

Not really. Each new game has something added to the formula. Unlike the EA or Activision style yearly releases which seem about as "fresh" as a Madden roster update. If what Bethesda is doing is stagnation... well their "stagnation" is better than most publishers.

 

[Metalix Knightmare]

Given what I've seen put in the DLC for fallout 4 and then put in by the modders, yeah I actually think Bethesda is at the very least getting sloppy and expecting the modding community to pick up the slack these days.

A good example being the Contraptions workshop. You know, the one with all the factories and forges? It's not bad except that they never put in a forge for melee and fist weapons, the forge for armor just spits out random parts from specific sets (I got one full set of heavy combat armor and a TON of left leg armors), and there was no forge for power armor (Though that could be excused for balance reasons). I had to get a mod for all that.

How the frick they managed to not put in melee forges I will never know. Freaking mind boggling.

(One could also make the argument that this and most of the Workshop DLC should've been in the game from the start, and I would agree with you but that's not really an issue unique to Bethesda.)

And seriously, Skyrim Remastered? Get that out of my face! Skyrim isn't even ten years old yet!