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Wired: Todd Howard talks about every game he made

SABRE220

Member
Bethesda's quality took a nose dive since the ps3/360gen. Their games were jaw-droppers for the gen with nothing offering the scale and sense of freedom for the generation, I still remember walking out of the cyrodil sewer in oblivion and the vault in fallout3 goosebumps, while morrowind was probably the peak in terms of writing and depth as an overall package the 360gen games were amazing but even in skyrim you could feel depth fading away and the quests getting more and more basic....then they decided to just do the bare minimum and lost any ambition with pushing their limits.

Playing fallout4 was just underwhelming it was a decent game but you could clearly see the lack of ambition compared to their past games, middling visuals, average scale, pared back depth there was nothing to get excited about anymore, then came fallout76 ...the less said the better. Then there was starfield after all the hype and promises starfield basically dissolved any hope I had in bethesda returning to form. I think he needs to retire and let some fresh blood into the studio to reinvigorate their ambition and creativity but I truly hope he can pull some of his past spark out from within him to leave us with a magnum opus with es6... but let's be real that's a fool hope with no real basis.
 
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This is BS of course. Bethesda games each have 100+ fully scripted, pre-written quests and stories. They are not pure sandboxes. People are criticizing - rightfully - the quality of those quests, stories, characters and writing in general, because it is poor.

If Bethesda was making pure sandboxes like Mount and Blade or Kenshi, your post would make sense. But they don't, so it doesn't.

There are levels to this. Bethesda games are more sandboxy, more open ended than say, CD Project RPGs.

In Skyrim, if you don't like someone, you can go to their house at night and steal their clothes from their inventory. Next day you will find them roaming naked on streets.

Most people won't even attempt to do something like this. So, as per them, game is lacking in choice and consequences or story or whatever.
 

Denton

Member
There are levels to this. Bethesda games are more sandboxy, more open ended than say, CD Project RPGs.

In Skyrim, if you don't like someone, you can go to their house at night and steal their clothes from their inventory. Next day you will find them roaming naked on streets.

Most people won't even attempt to do something like this. So, as per them, game is lacking in choice and consequences or story or whatever.
They are more "sandboxy", but 90% of the playtime in these games, for most people, is spent doing scripted questlines. So it is not exactly strange to criticize the quality of these aspects.

Personally I do not consider being able to steal from people as some particularly amazing "story and choice and consequence" aspect of these games.

Not to mention, Starfield regresses even in this regard, most NPCs in it (all except the AI companions?) have no real daytime schedules anymore. Kingdom Come Deliverance it ain't.
 
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They are more "sandboxy", but 90% of the playtime in these games, for most people, is spent doing scripted questlines. So it is not exactly strange to criticize the quality of these aspects.

Personally I do not consider being able to steal from people as some particularly amazing "story and choice and consequence" aspect of these games.

Not to mention, Starfield regresses even in this regard, most NPCs in it (all except the AI companions?) have no real daytime schedules anymore. Kingdom Come Deliverance it ain't.

I think you are confusing story/character focused quests with quality of quests.

Quests in both Skyrim and Starfield are great. They don't involve characters yapping for long or emotional stuff.

If you play them as exploration focused, they are pretty amazing mini adventures.
 

Bungie

Member
This is BS of course. Bethesda games each have 100+ fully scripted, pre-written quests and stories. They are not pure sandboxes. People are criticizing - rightfully - the quality of those quests, stories, characters and writing in general, because it is poor.

If Bethesda was making pure sandboxes like Mount and Blade or Kenshi, your post would make sense. But they don't, so it doesn't.
Of course there's typical quest lines and stories, his complaint was that even if there's more of that type of content or not the games are lifeless which is just not true but yes you are right, none of those things are bethesda's strong suit. I was speaking about what makes Bethesda games great outside of typical content. These games don't require you to do 100+ fully scripted, pre-written quest & stories. I can just do the prologue & explore the world, work on being a thief or leveling up skills, eating all the sweet rolls etc.
 

SHA

Member
It's time this guy retired, I think. Starfield was a huge disappointment, massively unambitious and wholly dated with bland writing, characters and story. Sure, I had some fun with the game but it felt like I was playing an RPG from 2013 rather than a ground-breaking one from 2023. It makes a lot less excited about Elder Scrolls 6 if it is going to be designed by Todd Howard and still using the creaky old Creation Engine...
They're just bunch of old guys, the younger ones should stand on their feet and we see what they do, the generation is definitely lead by these people.
 
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WitchHunter

Banned
terminator future shock remaster by bightdive studios
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That game was friggin great. Plus you could shoot down the Moon! :D
 

Denton

Member
Quests in both Skyrim and Starfield are great.
Well, that's where we clearly disagree. At least when it comes to Skyrim, I did not play Starfield enough to make that determination yet (but what I played, around 15 hours, did not fill me with optimism).

Best Bethesda quest(line) I can remember is Dark Brotherhood in Oblivion, plus the painting quest, plus some quests in Shivering Isles (Sheogorath was great). But Skyrim was significantly weaker.
 
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