At 4/23/25 12:51 PM, KagoDev wrote:Ah let people be passionate about their interests. There hasn't been a new Elder Scrolls in 14 years, despite VI being announced 7 years ago. I'd say it's understandable that some fans are getting impatient.
Ordinarily I would agree, but it's not like Bethesda were just sitting on their asses (*cough* Valve*) since they were working on Starfield.
The bigger problem is setting expectations: when every game you make takes multiple years since it has to be a gargantuan game, then you have to make people understand that things take proportionally - or even exponentially - longer. If they would delegate TES VI to a third party studio like they did Oblivion's remaster, then it would get done faster but it wouldn't live up to anyone's standards - not Bethesda's, nor players'. So HQ inevitably has to make the game, but that means they can't work on their other titles during that time...which are also gargantuan. Rinse and repeat.
Now that's a management issue, but it's also a gamer issue - "large open world" has been the mainstay of AAA for a long time now because it works. And people come to expect it "because it's AAA", and then you have a self-perpetuating cycle which just widens the rift between what counts as "indie" and what counts as "AAA".
Are there IPs which are functionally abandoned? Sure, dozens - Prince of Persia for example. It's perpetually starved of attention because Ubisoft rakes in the moolah with their other projects. But that's not what's happening here. Bethesda knows all too well the significance of TES to its player base.
*And even Valve in a way wasn't, since they released the Steam Deck.