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Rock and a hard place. They were 7ish years from their last elder scrolls release, and knew they had at least 7 (probably) for the next one. Their poor planning caused it, but the fans were so loud that they had to do something.
And what an underwhelming something. Studio could have started work on ES6 shortly after Skyrim and had another amazing game out by now, but dawdled. They were at their peak, they could have doubled the number of teams and pumped out fallout and es every other year. But they wasted their opportunity.
Bethesda really has no incentive to actually make TES6 so long as they have healthy subscribers for TES Online, I’m not surprised at all the game has likely been put on ice until the next generation.
Fortunately Starfield looks amazing and will hopefully fill that void for most of us who want a single player experience.
I don’t buy this. TES Online and actual TES games are so fundamentally different that they do not have the same audience. There are probably millions of people who will buy TES6 but have no interest in playing an MMORPG.
ESO’s story arcs, despite being within an MMORPG, can be played single player if one is feeling particularly antisocial. There’s a ton of story quests since the game has been out for a decade now that you could probably fit the entirety (content hours wise) of the Morrowind/Oblivion/Skyrim quest lines into it. Probably why the game is like 100 GB lol.
Of course, as an MMO, the storyline is constrained a bit (your choices functionally don’t really matter too much) since the game world can’t change drastically, so you won’t have an Imperial/Stormcloak type showdown that forever altered the landscape.
Still, ESO scratches the Morrowind itch, especially their latest Necrom expansion.
There’s also Tamriel Rebuilt (Morrowind mod) that also has Necrom, but I haven’t had a chance to check what they’ve done recently. (Last time I installed it, Firewatch was the farthest east they’ve gone but that was a long time ago).
Lots of MMOs work that way. I’m not talking about the fact that the game is multiplayer, I’m talking about the fact that the core gameplay does not offer the same uniquely immersive experience currently only found in single player Bethesda games like Skyrim or Fallout 4.
That’s me! I used to play Guild Wars 2 for a while, but haven’t touched an MMORPG in years. Me and my wife like to play single player games together, currently really late to subnautica.
In any case I’d imagine TES 6 would only serve to strengthen TES online and the entire TES franchise, so I don’t think that’s any reason for them not to make it.
Bethesda really has no incentive to actually make TES6 so long as they have healthy subscribers for TES Online
Why would that be the case? ESO is neither made nor published by Bethesda, so it’s weird that they would refuse to make a game because of what another company is doing.
Zenimax is Bethesda’s parent company, sure, but it’s still another company.
Although for the record, ESO is still a pretty good single player experience. It’s not moddable which sucks, but the game generally lets you do 99% of its content solo without ever needing to interact with another player for any reason. Which is cool, since it’s mind bogglingly huge and the quests are generally interesting. If TES6 turns out to be even 1/10th the size of ESO, I’ll be pleasantly very surprised.
You definitely haven’t played ESO
That was such a weird thing to do, considering that Starfield isnt even out yet.
My guess it that TES6 won’t be out for a good 6-7 years more.
Considering that for years Bethesda couldn’t fart without their fans asking “Where is ES6? Just let us know ES6 exists!”, I’m not too surprised. They rushed a teaser just to shut people up, but in the process set themselves up for years more of “Show us more ES6!”
Peak Bethesda for me was announcing Fallout 4 six months before release date. None of this 10+ years to build up hype that the game can’t live up to.
When they first dropped the trailer, my coworker said it would be out within the year because “why would they show it if it wasn’t ready?”. I bet him $100 if it released by next summer, and $20 for me every year it didn’t release. I don’t work with him anymore and it wasn’t a fair bet anyway, but I always think fondly of that when TES6 release comes up
Just send it to collections.
Not really that surprising that we haven’t gotten much (if anything) new since. It was pretty clear that the trailer was basically just a statement of “we plan on this being a thing that exists at some point”. IIRC, we knew that it was extremely early in development and that Starfield would come first.
As a side note: I remember people theorising that it would be subtitled Redfall, since Bethesda had trademarked the name around the same time.
As a side note: I remember people theorising that it would be subtitled Redfall, since Bethesda had trademarked the name around the same time.
I also remember Todd later saying in an interview, after lot’s of speculation, that they had no idea yet for the game, basically debunking any speculation as just that.
I also thought the rumor was on trademarking “The Elder Scrolls: Redguard” or something along those lines, which is easily explained as that’s the name of an old spin-off from 1998 that they likely had to settle some stuff for. Timing spe ifically could be chance, or them figuring the announcement would bring more attention to the franchise. Besides, all game titles have been prime location. I think the word “Redfall” was a different rumour than the trademark one.
An old Twitter post suggested Highrock which also matched the trailers look. However, the next ESO chapter became Highrock and they never went back in a main game before, obviously ignoring Arena (Daggerfall was in that High Rock and Hammerfell) So it may have just been about that. An apperantly leaked internal note spoke of project Greenwood, possibly setting it in Valenwood (second most rumoured place) but that is alleged.
But then, it’s late night and it’s been quite a while since I looked into it. So I might renember it wrong as well.
In the end, Bethesda still has us talking and speculating, and has me writing 4 paragraphs, with just releasing one shitty 5 year old trailer. And that while, as I said at the start, pretty all rumours where debunked as “we don’t know yet”. Damn they got me. They still got me…
When it actually releases I’m sure there will be tons of articles and news that it was rushed and is unfinished
Tbf that’s because it’ll be rushed and unfinished.
It’s okay. We’ll get Skyrim for the PS6.
For all the complaints over the years (from myself included), there are very few options for games like Elder Scrolls main games.
These kinds of games are extremly difficult to build. Skyrim still does things I haven’t seen any game other than Fallout 4 do since.
What things would that be? Im trying to think of something that hasnt been replicated / improved in another game, but I am drawing a blank personally.
One example: The way Bethesda games track an enormous number of physics enabled objects across their open worlds. I feel like most games in the last 10 years have made a point of simplifying their physics systems to a point of near-nonexistence.
Bethesda knows that when I dump 500 wheels of cheese on the floor of my house in Whiterun, I want it all to still be exactly where I left it when I come back 20 hours later.
good point. I still have daggers that refuse to stay in their display boxes and move around the house mysteriously, though 🙃
I prefer to suspect the radiant engine before Lydia or Ysolda (well, Serana maybe lol).
Valheim does a really great job with this. I think the closest I’ve seen in a game. The other part of this is that’s part of what makes their VR Ports so good.
500 Cheese wheels?!
[Sheogorath would like to know your location]
Fair point. I can’t really think of any games that have done that, either. Interesting that there haven’t been more physics sandbox style open worlds, come to think of it…
The physics part isn’t even really that important, I think. It helps pile things up, but it’s not tantamount to what makes a Bethesda game.
It’s from a culmination of decisions that lead to it. To letting you pick up all these miscellaneous items. To saving where these items are stored. To letting you go anywhere you want to. And on top of all that, having a fully functional game working along side all that. It’s a freedom you don’t get in most other games. Sometimes people ask why it’s even necessary, I like to think Bethesda responds with: Why not?
Nobody else makes them because indies don’t have the resources to make them like Bethesda and AAA devs don’t have the luxury to invest in such a niche experimental and expensive genre.
I would like to have it explained to me by someone au fait with GameDev as to what’s stopping a smaller studio going after something with the scope of Morrowind or Oblivion.
Bethesda are so blessed to have their own unique niche that’s so stupidly popular.
Just piles and piles and piles of work. Imagine all the trees, grass, rocks, terrain, buildings, props - and then character and creature models, animations, sounds, writing it goes on and on!
And the simulation complexity, which leads to an endless sea of bugs. Imitators typically just leave a lot of this out. But Bethesda knows that when the player dumps 500 wheels of cheese in their house in Whiterun, they better still be there and fully physics-enabled when they come back 20 hours later.
It was just an announcement. It is quite normal for huge AAA games to take more than 5 years to develop. Bethesda was and probably is not in full time production for TES 6. But sure time flies very fast and feel old now…
Let’s be honest here, it’s not even in full production yet, not until Bethesda releases Starfield.
I’m sure Starfield will release in a broken state and require at least a year of patching to be mostly playable, so we’ll also have to factor that development time in as well.
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Five years, eh? Maybe I’ll make some room and re-install/re-mod Skyrim at some point in the summer. Haven’t touched it in, like, two years, but I’ve been kinda missing it. Or maybe I could try ESO again.
Gotta sympathize with people who were watching the Elder Scrolls Online trailer during the direct, thinking it might have been ESVI.
That TES Online trailer trolled me so hard when I watched the showcase, I thought it was Elder Scrolls 6 and I just forgot that game existed.
This seems on brand for elder scrolls
Very much so. Question I wanted answered is; How much progress have they made in those five years? If Starfield has taken 90% of the studio’s resources, then it’d essentially mean that they’ve started working on TES6 in earnest not too long ago. So maybe we’ll see it in 5 more years? The thought saddens me.
We’re probably going to see Skyblivion and Skywind release before TES6…
Maybe by the time my son is old enough to play with me, lol
Is he born yet?
I’m still in the “find a girlfriend” stage
