I want good games, which is why I don't like Bethesda.
Their "open world" games feel almost like a mockery. Fallout 4 is a good example.
The main hub "city" has 52 npcs. It just destroys immersion, there shouldn't even be raiders in the game because there is no one to raid... Skyrim had similar issues.
Meanwhile of you go play New Vagas is actually feel like a living world.
Bethesda needs to do better imo the Witcher 3 was Skyrim but better in every way.
The attraction of the TES games has always been that you could write your own stories, but that also meant you had to be willing to do that. To write yourself into a world that provides few constraints and thus, also few guidelines.
Quite a few games have provided memorable moments for me, but in the TES games they are different because they were entirely of my own making. In Morrowind in 2002 or so, I had decided I didn't want to deal with all the random monsters in the long run, and worked tirelessly, dealing with a ton of exactly that in the process, until I got myself a permanent flying enchantment (which sadly, was made impossible in the later games). Then I set out on *real* exploration tours, eventually to follow the main quest. One day as I floated across the landscape I had to camp for some reason I don't recall, but there were monsters all across the landscape, so I landed on one of the pillars of the Ghostfence - unreachable for ground-bound monsters - and camped there, in a storm. Now tell me, is there any other game that's not a TES game, where something like that would've been possible? Where I have that much freedom to engage with the world as I want? I love Fallout New Vegas and like to tell everyone who doesn't want to hear it they should play it if they want a good Fallout game that's still somewhat playable. But it implements a different formula than the TES games, in spite of the superficial similarities.
And then, of course, there are the mods. Don't like Oblivion's abysmal progression system? Mod it. No more permanent flying enchantments? Mod it. Don't like the vanilla player houses? Lose yourself in the countless mods on offer before you return to the game.
I see all the flaws. People don't buy these games because they don't see them, or don't care. They buy them because these games hit a sweet spot for them.
Meanwhile, yes, I agree. Things have moved on since Skyrim and TW3 has shown everyone that you can make a city that actually feels like one, and have a large open-world game where still almost everything is of noticable technical and artistic quality. People will expect better today than back in 2011, 2004 or 2001 and be less tolerant of the almost hilarious bugfests the TES games have usually been at launch. But I suspect the formula will still work. Whether it works for Starfield, or whether Starfield even attempts to implement a similar formula, I don't know. That one I will buy simply because it's an RPG with an SF setting. It may not hit the sweet spot, but I'm reasonably certain it will be worth paying €60 for.
