In August 2023, Todd Howard described his intent behind The Elder Scrolls VI as wanting to make “the ultimate fantasy-world simulator”,
That’s when you should have known. TES is at heart a novelistic series that is owned by a studio whose entire style is now “short term crafting and gameplay loops occurring within a physics simulation”.
The same could be said of Skyrim, but tons of people loved it and it’s still a great framework for modding if Bethesda themselves don’t give it a good storyline.
Skyrim had a narrative, it had stories that raised curiosity enough to engage with the gameplay loops. Some of the side quest were even pretty good, the main quest was meh.
Increasingly Bethesda seems to be building their games around gameplay loops with narrative increasingly ancillary. They’ve optimized for grind without giving a reason to grind.
That’s when you should have known. TES is at heart a novelistic series that is owned by a studio whose entire style is now “short term crafting and gameplay loops occurring within a physics simulation”.
The same could be said of Skyrim, but tons of people loved it and it’s still a great framework for modding if Bethesda themselves don’t give it a good storyline.
Skyrim had a narrative, it had stories that raised curiosity enough to engage with the gameplay loops. Some of the side quest were even pretty good, the main quest was meh.
Increasingly Bethesda seems to be building their games around gameplay loops with narrative increasingly ancillary. They’ve optimized for grind without giving a reason to grind.
Quite so, but I’ll be damned if fans are ever going to redo TES6 in whatever engine they make for (god forbid) TES10, forty years from now.