However, I also believe Bethesda kind-of went for this offbeat vibe on purpose Morrowind already was plenty weird (and found great success in spite of not being a mainstream hit), so it made sense to keep around some of its kookiness.Īmongst all the super important quests about saving the world (or something), the third Elder Scrolls dared to ask (and answer) questions like 'can a mage could come up with a totally unsafe spell to jump ludicrous distances?' You find a dude splattered on a road and a book next to him. And these wacky, Pratchett-esque moments wouldn’t be possible without some of the game’s systems being fundamentally broken. This is only a small selection of the goofy, weird stuff that will happen in 100s of hours of playing. You accidentally kill a farmer who got in the way of a sword slash and next thing you know, you’re part of a secret cult of assassins. A dude who loves his dogs randomly breaks down and starts punching those same dogs until he’s put down by the town guards. Bandits sit around the roads doing nothing besides bullying you, and eventually wear nothing but high-level gear for some reason. Oversized crabs (disgusting creatures) are looking for brawls 24/7. And that combo rocked.įor all the seriousness Oblivion demonstrates during its starting hour – including Sir Patrick Stewart in a limited (but key) role – the experience promptly goes off the rails once you step out of the Imperial sewers. It was kind of bananas, but also far from polished. One day, in 2004, you’re playing GTA: San Andreas, and less than two years later Todd Howard and his team come out with a huge sandbox filled with houses and caves you can visit, NPCs with (somewhat) realistic lives, and physics that you had only seen in a handful of shooters before. If we look at Skyrim – or even 2008’s Fallout 3 – it quickly becomes clear that Bethesda Game Studios learned a lot from going all-in with Oblivion right at the beginning of the 360/PS3 generation. The (heavily) Medieval European setting of Cyrodiil is vanilla enough to feel bucolic and homely without trying too hard the magic system is broken as hell the “revolutionary” AI of the NPCs is both lively and hilariously robotic… the list goes on and on, but it all comes down to Bethesda making the right game at the right time, but without all the right tech it needed to realise its ambitions. I keep returning to Oblivion because it’s remarkably charming in a really innocent way. That’s how I felt when I first stepped into Tamriel with Oblivion, anyway – it's an experience that was (and still is) special, and that isn't just nostalgia speaking, either. Meanwhile, The Elder Scrolls Online has become bigger than anyone anticipated by following the philosophy that made Oblivion and Skyrim earth-shattering hits, and marketing for that game constantly highlights what every TES fan knows to be true: it’s about our individual stories, and how we experience each piece of content in radically different ways.īut The Elder Scrolls’ biggest success has always been making the world of Tamriel feel like home, instead of just like a 50-hour vacation.
And it had that Bethesda Game Studios patented world design, with those unforgettable morsels of bite-sized lore, too. It got popular mostly because it implementated Radiant AI alongside the series' staple procedural quests and traditional, hand-crafted storylines. That's why everyone is still going on about it now.
There is likely to be no new core Elder Scrolls game next year, but we're still hopeful it might get revealed or that Bethesda has something else RPG-related in store for us in 2017.Skyrim undeniably set a new bar for open-world games back in 2011. You should listen to me (and Todd) more often. Pete Hines, VP of PR/Marketing at Bethesda, tweets: "Sorry but you totally punted this one. and that's straight out of the horse's mouth. Unfortunately, there is evidence he may not be correct in his prediction regarding Elder Scrolls VI in 2017. It's worth pointing out that Pachter's predictions from 2015 were included as well, and he was on point with them (including NX not releasing 2016 and Miitomo being a commercial failure). This claim was made during his predictions for 2017 over on Games Industry, where he and several analysts tried to foretell what will happen next year. If industry analyst Michael Pachter is to be believed, we're not too far away from something that a lot of us are waiting for: Elder Scrolls VI. It seems like people can't get enough of Bethesda's role-playing games last year Fallout 4 beat Bethesda's in-house record to become its fastest selling game following on from that success, the publisher released a Special Edition of Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, and once again a Bethesda RPG sold really, really well.
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