- cross-posted to:
- elderscrolls@lemmy.zip
- cross-posted to:
- elderscrolls@lemmy.zip
We feel we’re in a really good place
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Howard also says that, with The Elder Scrolls 6, the studio has “handled” the Creation Engine “better than we ever have” thanks to lessons learned from Starfield.
More than 8 years into development with nothing to show, and they feel like they’re in a good place?
To set your expectations accordingly, it was probably a skeleton crew working on pre-production, grayboxing, and technology upgrades while the majority of the studio was on Starfield until a ways after it shipped. So they announced it way too early (often a tactic to get talent to apply for a job), and they’ve probably only really been working on it for about 2 years now.
It’s not 8 years into development. The reveal doesn’t mean they started working on it. The reveal was there to remind players that they haven’t forgotten about TES. At best they were in early pre-production. I imagine development didn’t really start until after the release of Starfield, which means it’s 3 years in development.
If development hasn’t begun by the time a product is announced, then the company isn’t doing a very good job managing its projects.
See also: every game company that’s released a broken product which didn’t meet expectations.
Announce shit when you’re working on shit. Otherwise, it’s just vaporware.
Tell that to Blizzard who months after the Bethesda reveal got a massive backlash for revealing Diablo immortals and not even mentioning Diablo 4.
The problem wasn’t that they didn’t announce Diablo 4.
The problem was that nobody wanted Diablo Immortal.
Nobody wanted it and they were outraged because that’s all they got. Had Diablo 4 been announced at the same time the Diablo fans wouldn’t have cared about Diablo Immortal. We know that because Bethesda has pulled that same thing twice, first with Fallout Shelter and Fallout 4 and then with TES: Blades and TES6. And just so you wouldn’t think I’m talking out of my ass about Diablo Immortal, here’s an article stating pretty much the same thing..
Teasing Diablo fans with multiple projects and pumping out a freemium game without even a hint of Diablo 4 is like promising your kids ice cream and then taking them to the dentist.
“It’s very different than the two latest commercial flops we made”, the sales agent declared!
Fallout 4 wasn’t a commercial flop, it’s outsold every other fallout game and made $750 million the day after launch
The last two Bethesda games were Fallout 76 and Starfield. IDK what the ROI was like (sales were probably not as bad as the criticism, but AAA gamedev budgets are pretty high), but it certainly didn’t meet expectations and it damaged them as a brand.
Oh I was thinking of 76. Didn’t that do poorly?
In the first year, yeah, it was a total disaster, but it survived. Being a live service with shitloads of microtransactions, plus the tv series some time ago, made it a good ROI
Ah alright, didn’t know that, I stand corrected!
Maybe at first, but it’s had a long tail, especially with the TV show funneling people to Fallout games. And even with the reception Starfield got, it probably still made bank.
I’m not sure about that one. It did get a ton of complaints in the beginning so probably didn’t do as well as they expected.
They’re going to have to delay it a little longer so they can fully integrate DLSS 5 and push paid Creations harder.
meh
