I couldn’t take Oblivion Remastered seriously because of the goofy sprint animation. Every single time I zoomed out to third person, (which I usually do for melee combat) the goofy sprint had me cackling. The character runs like you’re out of lockpicks and trying to bash doors down with your skull.

CitizenKong@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 40d

As far as I know a Remaster of Fallout 3 is planned actually.

Kn1ghtDigital@lemmy.zip · 96 pts · 41d (4 replies)

NGL I don't have a lot of faith in Bethesda to actually create quality anymore. The image for this is for Vegas, which was more obsidian's work, and they did it in a fraction of time, I think?

Bluefruit@lemmy.world · 24 pts · 41d

Yea it was a very short window for development, 18 months: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallout:_New_Vegas

iamthetot@piefed.ca · 21 pts · 41d (1 reply)

I'm a huge Elder Scrolls fan. I met my partner on Elder Scrolls Online. I have pretty much zero faith in Elder Scrolls VI being any good.

CosmoNova@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 41d

I mean ESO was developed by ZeniMax. Perhaps it would be best to let them handle Bethesda‘s franchises directly and disband their subsidiary. I suspect Bethesda has suffered too much from toxic positivity.

DupaCycki@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 40d

Depends how you look at it. Obsidian was more like a modding team than a game development team for New Vegas. They had the engine and all mechanics ready to use. All they had to do was minor tweaks and new content. So essentially modding, not developing a game.

Arguably, most of 'game development' these days is more akin to 'modding' from 10+ years ago, so the terms kind of lose their meaning. But New Vegas was made in 2008-2010, so I think it fits.

As we can see years later, games made by Obsidian from scratch aren't nearly as good. Perhaps what made New Vegas great was the mix of Bethesda and Obsidian. Or maybe Obsidian just lost their edge, like most studios, sadly.

acosmichippo@lemmy.world · 61 pts · 41d (14 replies)

I'm not a CEO or anything but maybe they should try making an elder scrolls more than once every 20 years.

alekwithak@lemmy.world · 17 pts · 41d (4 replies)

But making games costs money. Corporations are supposed to make money for their shareholders, not spend it!

acosmichippo@lemmy.world · 11 pts · 41d (3 replies)

someone should have told them that before Starfield.

ampersandrew@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 40d (1 reply)

Starfield almost certainly made a boatload of money.

acosmichippo@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 40d

and so would elderscrolls. I was yes-anding the joke.

P00ptart@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 40d

Starfield was made because they're afraid of fucking up their cash cows by ruining their legacy. They'll just port Skyrim to the PS7 and it'll sell.

Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 41d (2 replies)

Is Skyrim really the last one???

formergijoe@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 41d (1 reply)

I guess the Elder Scrolls Online technically counts as an Elder Scrolls post Skyrim

P00ptart@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 41d

That wasn't even made by Bethesda, though.

CosmoNova@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 41d (5 replies)

Here’s my uninspired lame advise that will never happen: ZeniMax should close down Bethesda. Then they should contract the Crimson Dessert guys and hire a good writer to make the next Elder Scrolls game. Sure it‘s more expensive than doing it in house and it would take years but I think it‘s what players would want.

BigBananaDealer@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 40d (1 reply)

nobody wants that they want skyrim again with a new story and world. why did fallout 4 get mixed reactions? not skyrim enough. why did starfield get mixed reactions? not skyrim enough.

and the people who dont want skyrim again just want morrowind again

CosmoNova@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 40d

I genuinely don‘t think Elder Scrolls fans would actually want just another Skyrim. They‘ve had over a dozen releases of that already. The devs definitely have to be better.

ampersandrew@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 40d (2 replies)

Warhorse is working on a Lord of the Rings game. That's probably more of what we want out of a new Elder Scrolls than the actual next Elder Scrolls.

CosmoNova@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 40d (1 reply)

I have to say that Kingdom Come Deliverance wasn‘t for me. Too realistic. Too tedious. That‘s probably what makes it great for the fans but I do not think Elder Scrolls fans want inconvenience just because it‘s realistic. They‘re not the same fan base.

ampersandrew@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 39d

Somehow I'll bet they ditch realism for a Lord of the Rings game, particularly on default difficulty, and keep the very clear Elder Scrolls trappings that inspired their systems design.

cybervseas@lemmy.world · 44 pts · 41d (33 replies)

What else have they been busy with? Just Starfield?

Doc_Crankenstein@slrpnk.net · 35 pts · 41d (22 replies)

Seriously, it isn't like Bethesda has a long list of IP to work with here.

Other than Elder Scrolls and Fallout (which they should already be assumed to be focusing on to begin with), the only other IPs that are still alive would be DOOM and maybe Wolfenstein,

Dishonored is dead, Quake is dead, they shuttered Tango so no continuation of Hi-Fi Rush or Ghostwire, RAGE is dead.

mnemonicmonkeys@sh.itjust.works · 9 pts · 41d (5 replies)

Unfortunately, Bethesda decided to spend all their time working on Starfield. The only thing they had when they revealed the ES6 trailer, was the video. And that's because they knew they'd get lynched if they didn't annoubce ES6

BigBananaDealer@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 40d (4 replies)

its not unfortunate that bethesda tried something new, more companies should be doing that. i do not want another sports franchise, call of duty, or far cry just churning out games ASAP with lessening quality

mnemonicmonkeys@sh.itjust.works · 4 pts · 40d (3 replies)

I get where you're coming from, but I don't think that was a risk. Bethesda-style games take awhile to make, and they only have gotten longer. They used to be 3 years between releases between Arena, Daggerfall, and Morrowind. Then it was 5 years between Morrowind, Oblivion and Skyrim. And now it's been over 15 years since Skyrim. And Fallout hasn't been much better, with Fallout 4 releasing 10 years ago.

And there's 2 main reasons for the dearth of Bethesda releases: Bethesda really needed to split into 5 teams: 3 creative teams for their main franchises (Elder Scrolls, Fallout, and Starfield), 1 for programming (Creation Engine updates, bug fixes, etc.), and 1 for finishing (Q/A, clutter). Right now, almost everything needs to go through Todd Howard. They need to instead have Todd be in charge of 1-2 creative teams, and have other people take the reigns of the others because Todd only has so many hours in the day.

They could probably get back to releases every 3-5 years for each franchise and have enough wiggle room to take chances with delegation

BigBananaDealer@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 40d (2 replies)

for sure, but i also think with starfield overhauling the engine and then COVID happening threw a gigantic wrench into bethesda's future. we'd have probably gotten es6 by now if not for that

mnemonicmonkeys@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 40d (1 reply)

The engine overhaul for Starfield definitely took a lot of time. I still want to see what they could do with it in an ES game, or even porting older games into the new version.

I think it'd be cool if they used some procedural generation to place trees in forests, so you could cut or burn some down and have the forest naturally grow back over time. Or officially add in seasons

BigBananaDealer@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 40d

theyve actually had procedural generation in all elder scrolls games, though for those it was purely for scenery and then touched up when needed, while in starfield it was for whole planets with procedural POIs and some touch ups on specific planets

i am really excited for es6 because of starfield, the jetpacks are very fun and it gives me hope that levitating will come back from morrowind

cybervseas@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 41d

Thanks I suppose I forgot about Doom. So, he meant they shouldn't focus on Doom lol.

VitoRobles@lemmy.today · 4 pts · 41d (5 replies)

Oh is it Bethesda and ID software now? I didn't know they merged. I knew ID software helped with Starfield, but I thought they were still separate.

Doc_Crankenstein@slrpnk.net · 15 pts · 41d (4 replies)

The Bethesda-id software-ZeniMax shit is so confusing, especially since Microsoft acquired Zenimax, and by extension Bethesda and id, in 2021.

They are "technically" separate but Bethesda is still the primary publisher of id software's games, and thus they do fall under their umbrella.

addie@feddit.uk · 5 pts · 41d (1 reply)

Asha Sharma had this statement, in amongst the rest of it. As per Ars Technica:

Some decisions in the gaming division currently pass through “14 layers” of decision-makers, Sharma said, before promising that the new Xbox will be a “flatter organization” with “no more than 5, and where possible, 3” layers of management involved in any decision.

You'd have to think that it's this shit that she's pointing at. Massively excessive management certainly helps with all the design-by-committee cookie-cutter crap that's filled with monetisation. Alas, they've just got rid of the really interesting studios that I'd like to see spread their wings a little.

Doc_Crankenstein@slrpnk.net · 2 pts · 40d

Yea, bit of a double edged sword and doubly so with who is swinging it.

Glad they see it's a problem of structure that's getting in the way of creation but their methods of trimming the excess has sadly closed a lot of my favorite studios.

I will never get a Prey 2 no matter what iteration it seems.

The_Decryptor@aussie.zone · 1 pts · 41d (1 reply)

It's similar to Google and Alphabet, the "child" company created the "parent".

Bethesda created ZeniMax, ZeniMax own Bethesda (And ID, and Arkane), and then Microsoft bought ZeniMax and all the child companies.

Doc_Crankenstein@slrpnk.net · 1 pts · 40d

It's all corporate capitalist "I own a piece of paper that says I own you and everything you worked to create" bullshit and tax fuckery to me.

QueenMidna@lemmy.ca · 4 pts · 41d (8 replies)

Hi-fi got picked up by a different studio, didn't it?

formergijoe@lemmy.world · 11 pts · 41d (2 replies)

Tango Gameworks and the Hi-Fi Rush IP got acquired by Krafton, who is known for publishing PUBG.

mnemonicmonkeys@sh.itjust.works · 9 pts · 41d

Krafton can eat a bag of dicks

TheNamlessGuy@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 40d

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Doc_Crankenstein@slrpnk.net · 3 pts · 41d (4 replies)

Not as far as I'm aware.

TheLowestStone@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 41d (3 replies)

Tango was purchased by Krafton and HiFi Rush 2 is supposedly in the works.

Doc_Crankenstein@slrpnk.net · 3 pts · 41d (2 replies)

Oh sweet.

Sidyctism2@discuss.tchncs.de · 1 pts · 40d (1 reply)

Eh, we will see. I am excited for hi-fi rush 2, but after the subnautica 2 debacle... we will see

Doc_Crankenstein@slrpnk.net · 2 pts · 40d

Tango is still Tango, even if they now have to shoulder the yoke that is Krafton. I'm still excited for more Hi-Fi Rush.

Krafton did lose massively in that attempt and the original Subnautica creators are getting everything they are owed plus some.

Subnautica 2 is definitively a Subnautica game, going back to what made the game great in the original instead of the flop that was Below Zero. So, I'm pretty confident Hi-Fi 2 will be good and maintain the vision of the first game.

Still, whether or not I'm paying for it depends on how much Krafton wants fuck around.

ms_lane@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 40d

Skyrim > 4 years > Fallout 4 > 4 Years > Fallout 76 (yes, it was Todd's team that made the map and original quests) > 4+1 years > Starfield

Kolanaki@pawb.social · 5 pts · 41d (4 replies)

TES6 for sure and possibly a new Fallout, if rumors are true. Also don't Bethesda handle Doom, now? There's gonna be a DLC to Dark Age coming out tomorrow.

edgemaster72@lemmy.world · 14 pts · 41d

id develops Doom, Bethesda is the publisher, both of which are owned by ZeniMax, itself owned by Micro$lop under the Xbox division

rtxn@lemmy.world · 11 pts · 41d (2 replies)

Also don’t Bethesda handle Doom, now?

No, id Software is the developer company, ~~which is owned by the publisher~~ and published by Bethesda Softworks, both of which are owned by ZeniMax. The "Bethesda" that does actual game development is called Bethesda Game Studios; they handle franchises like Fallout and TES.

Kolanaki@pawb.social · 4 pts · 41d (1 reply)

Which one is talking in the article though? I am not sure who Jill Braff is; boss of the game development studio, or the larger publishing part of "Bethesda?" I thought Todd was the main person in charge of the game dev studio part, so I assume this is coming from the publishing part of Bethesda.

TheTechnician27@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 41d

Bethesda is hit particularly hard by the layoffs, IGN understands, with staff across its many development studios

It's talking about the publisher.

psx_crab@lemmy.zip · 4 pts · 41d (1 reply)

Likely ES6, and the DLC for Starfield.

cybervseas@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 41d

I was wondering which franchises other than their "strongest franchises". I think it's starfield and doom.

immutable@lemmy.zip · 3 pts · 40d

Let me preface this with the fact that I like Bethesda games, fallout, Skyrim, starfield, I enjoy them all.

Does anyone else feel like they are all kinda the same game.

elder scrolls: medieval Bethesda game
fallout: apocalypse Bethesda game
starfield: space Bethesda game

They share like 90% of the game mechanics.

I could see cutting back on these if they were all radically different, but they all few so similar to me, almost interchangeable.

But I’m sure not innovating and pumping out cash grab sequel after cash grab sequel will work, that works really well right? In a few years we can all read the “how Bethesda got beat by {scrappy upstart that actually provided interesting new games}” articles that try to piece together the mystery.

P00ptart@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 41d

Mostly ports. Because the switch 2 really needed a fallout 4 port.

Abyssian@lemmy.world · 39 pts · 40d (2 replies)

Yes, it's always a wonderful idea for creative game companies to stop being creative and trying to come up with cool new things and instead focus on things that have sold well in the past to please the shareholders.

That always works out for everyone.

kureta@lemmy.ml · 11 pts · 40d

Well, so f as r it worked really well for Bethesda. They sold Skyrim 10 times to everyone.

Katana314@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 40d

They could make a new Halo, that goes past even normal numbers. They don’t even have to settle for billions of gamers. They could call it…Halo Infinite.

KingThrillgore@lemmy.ml · 32 pts · 40d (4 replies)

Yeah let's focus on our franchises like Doom and Quake -- by firing half the staff at id.

Sony is on fire, Microsoft is on fire, Nintendo seems to be doing fine by focusing on brands and profit-first hardware; Valve is doing its own thing...Where did everyone else go so wrong?

AdolfSchmitler@lemmy.world · 13 pts · 40d

$500 million budgets probably. Things are different now. Video games aren't a form of art or interactive storytelling or anything creative. They're simply made to make a profit, that's it. Anything else is just a useful side effect. That's why indie games hit different. People with stories to tell instead of dollars to make. Movies are the same way too.

aksdb@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 40d

Looks like those that do badly are those that went on an acquisition spree over the last years.

Sylvartas@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 6 pts · 39d

Big money and MBA guys running the show is where it went wrong

Squizzy@lemmy.world · -1 pts · 40d

I think Nintendo has moved to niche, their gaming selection is so bad.

TheGreenWizard@lemmy.zip · 26 pts · 41d (2 replies)

Good luck Bethesda, even Obsidian has hit an 18 carat run of bad luck. I guess they'll stay afloat due to casual players and the fact that its an elderschrolls game. But count me the fuck out on getting es6, that shit will need to be fucking amazing for me to pay the AAA price it will inevitability be, and I mean AMAZING cause after fallout 4 I've been disappointed with them. God I wanna be wrong Tod, PLEASE TOD PROVE ME WRONG 😭

Bbbbbbbbbbb@lemmy.world · 28 pts · 41d (1 reply)

You dont need to worry about ES7, with the amount of time ES6 is taking, ES7 wont be within out lifetimes

TheGreenWizard@lemmy.zip · 5 pts · 41d

Lmao, my dumbass meant es6

sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 12 pts · 40d

Yeah... Todd and Emil... are gonna have to... actually make something good.

For the first time in a decade.

Right so like Asha's statement said that no publically announced games have been cancelled.

... Does Elder Scrolls 6 ... actually count as publically announced?

Its never had a release date or window, its only ever had one trailer, basically just a panning landscape shot...

FallOut 5 certainly isn't any kind of actually 'publically announced'.

Yeah I can see enough wiggle room there that Asha can basically be a fascist and just straight up tell Todd and Emil exactly what to do, and threaten to fire them if they don't.

Also just... as a former MSFT employee... I do not have enough lols to type in response to 'we're going to make sure there are no more than 5 layers of management, and also having a COO is probably a good idea'.

Yeah. Yep. I ... actually just straight up agree with that one, yep.

Too bad expressing such sentiments a decade ago wasn't exactly uh, well reviewed by my superiors at the time, oh well, cest la vie.

vane@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 41d

The morale must be great.

Mediaburn@lemmy.zip · 4 pts · 39d

How about... Make good games, for gamers and with respect for your customers.

DarkCloud@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 41d

Just make creative and fun games.

echodot@feddit.uk · 2 pts · 39d

Have they tried not trying to screw random people over to save .1% of their budget, only for that decision to decrease the player base by 50%?

Scio@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 41d

They have one of those left?

Passerby6497@lemmy.world · 0 pts · 40d (3 replies)

Who are they going to hire to make their games good if Obsidian goes under?

*Games in their IP/franchises

BigBananaDealer@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 40d (2 replies)

obsidian cant even make good games for themselves, i highly doubt theyd make good games for bethesda without credit

Passerby6497@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 40d (1 reply)

without credit

Not sure where this part came from, but Obsidian made FONV, a game in the Bethesda IP that was credited to them.

CrazyLikeGollum@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 39d

Also, not sure where the "Obsidian doesn't make good games" is coming from. Of the 17 games they've made only 3 of them are even remotely negatively reviewed. And most of them are either widely beloved or cult classics.

tixooo@lemmy.zip · -5 pts · 41d (4 replies)

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DupaCycki@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 40d (1 reply)

ESO is developed by an entirely different company - Bethesda's parent company, Zenimax. The only input from Bethesda is lore-related. They also use a completely different engine, and not Bethesda's creation engine.

tixooo@lemmy.zip · 1 pts · 40d

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Caducous@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 41d (1 reply)

I mean, you can make a next gen game that can also run on last gen hardware. We used to have ultra low settings but I guess no company wants to implement that anymore.

tixooo@lemmy.zip · 0 pts · 41d

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