As someone who used to be a Bethesda fanboy from the beginning, I hate that I have to agree with this video. I remember waiting with bated breath for the release of Skyrim after experiencing what they had to offer with Morrowind and Oblivion. But over time, it's clear that their focus on depth and storytelling has faded, with Starfield being their most uninspired release yet. Even Fallout 4, which had its flaws, offered a far more immersive and well-crafted narrative compared to the shallow experience Starfield provides.
I think "uninspired" is a great way to put it. Not that they weren't inspired to make something like Starfield, because it was Todd Howards dream game. But the fact that they drifted so far from what makes a "bethesda" game a bethesda game is what is surprising to me. 'Preciate the comment random internet person
I'm sorry to say this, but you can grief the Bethesda you were in love with. They still have Todd, they still have Emil (which isn't a good point for the later imo), but most of the team isn't the same, so they are simply not "your BGS" and will never be. Now, they still own the licenses you like, so lets hope the hit they took with Starfield's reception manage to push them to find a new identity. However, it came probably too late too expect much from ES6
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Starfield doesn’t feel like a thing a load of really excited people have made to be the most fun it could. It feels like a managed product designed and built in a weird bubble. There’s no spark, it’s like going back to place where you had an amazing party and trying your best to HAVE FUN AGAIN. You just end up a bit sad.
@@HorseArmour I can top that, actually. "Degraded". It started with Skyrim's "radiant quests" and now progressed fully into Starfield's development, which is a clear indication that development team don't see the obvious. Procedural generating in everything, the touted "forever game" where you do the same thing every new game+. Bethesda made a name from hand-crafted content... well. THEY RETURNED TO THE WAY THINGS WERE IN DAGGERFAL. Daggerfal. The game that in industry standards is practically antediluvian.
In my controversial opinion, there's been a noticeable decline even in their most popular works, like Skyrim. Flawed and disjointed gameplay systems, their approach of everything being optional, it has been showing for a while and Starfield is where there's no longer an appealing magical veil hiding it. I made a video essay/mini documentary about procedural generation and how (and why) it so often fails, looking at No Man's Sky, Minecraft, and lesser known titles. It's weird, Bethesda seems to have bet a lot on procedural generation but they also barely did anything with it.
I think Prod. Gen. could work to make a lively Open world. But you'd have to be a really good designer with a vision of whom none of this folk in AAA development are. They can't even make an autonomous open world by hand. Skyrim isn't an open world. It's just a large level.
@@Grubnar its not even so much that its broken, its more that its fundamentally flawed basically at the conceptual level. they basically got rid of all of the stuff that made skyrim and the others engaging and immersive and replaced it with 5 mile hikes to one of a couple dozen copy and pasted setpieces. emergent gameplay, quality lore, decent writing (sometimes) random encounters, environmental storytelling, those were their strengths and we got so little of any of it in starfield its baffling how tonedeaf they are
It’s too boring. People want to mod games that have more compelling worlds and gameplay to better envision the character they want to play. Hence why their earlier entries still get a lot of mod entries even to this day. Few would want to expend effort on writing their own characters in a boring setting.
@@antonypavlovsky3386I would say you’re wrong, because they’ve had Emil since Bloodmoon, but he’s not a writer, so I think you’re back to being correct.
Has it really gotten worse, or have we just become sick of the same formula? Is it Bethesda or have other studios upped their - no pun intended - game and exposed Bethesda's lackluster efforts?
@@pauln6803i think gamers have just become cynical & over analytical thanks to a surfeit of online critiques. You're trained to search for faults & focus on those, as opposed to just taking the rough with the smooth. Games have changed of course, but the way we play games, our attitude to playing games, has changed more.
The masses are like flies, drawn to things that those with good taste would never choose This is why people with bad taste don’t like starfield and play something like wu kong
They made a big mistake. They decided to make us wait so they could monetize Skyrim over and over again. By doing that they forgot how to make a game with the „Bethesda recipe“. They forgot what fans liked and want.
@@Vert_GreenHeart Fallout New Vegas was my wake-up. The dialogue and writing in that game made me realise Bethesda has shoddy writing. I've recently replayed Skyrim, and to be honest it's a chore. The Thieves Guild storyline is alright, but everything else is practically indistinguishable. And that's without getting into the radiant quests. Fallout 4... Couldn't even finish it, the dialogue was so poor. And what's up with the wobbly animations during dialogue?
Bethesda NEEDS to hire proper writers, this is so important right now. Sure the engine is outdated, so is the game design. But I think players would have been way more forgiving towards Starfield if it was just ...well written, with memorable characters and quests. Last year's transition from Starfield to Phantom Liberty has been eye-opening for a lot of people, those two are not even playing in the same league.
The writing type and quality didn't change since fallout 3 however. For those used to play games like neverwinter, baldur's gate, mass effect etc... The writing issue was always a thing. But they had a pass because the map and exploration definitely balanced that flaw, but they were in no mean good rpgs But now you have a company who was acclaimed for years for their work, to the point where they just don't seem to listen to critics, who throw away the only best point they had, their map, making obvious they don't even understand their former good perks. As long we keep seeing the selling point "bigger map and graphics" and not "smaller but deeper", I think it's fair to assume that we will never have a good surprise again from bgs
Honestly Bethesta probably needs to replace most of the staff to release good games again. Its not just Emil and Todd those two also hired people and have molded the people under them into what they want. I dont believe that there is a strong base of developers who keep bringing forward good ideas that get vetoed by these two all the time ... I bet most of those developers already left and what is left either thinks the same as them or have lost all will to struggle against them. Like seriously especially in the writing department you would expect the other writers to get at least 1 or 2 good written sidequest smuggled past Emil but there are literally none in the game so I can only assume nobody is trying anymore....
@@chidori0117 That's most likely because a big part of bgs already changed since morrowind / oblivion that they are at this point. People always fail to see the difference between the company's name and the people making the games (the best example being probably infinity ward with call of duty). Sure, they still have Todd, and I think some good ideas came from him. But yet, he isn't Bethesda by himself. So, agree, they need to replace a good chunk of their staff, but in any case, the Bethesda from ES4-5 will never come back, and for now, they seem to not be able to find their new identity neither.
@@docken1530 Bethesda's writing hasn't been good for a long time for sure, but I do think it's getting slightly worse with every iteration. Fallout 4's story was bad, but at least most of its companions minus Preston were pretty likeable folks imo. I wish I could say the same about Starfield.
@@Sylhux Ha, never said it wasn't worse, I totally agree the quality just keep getting lower, and it couldn't be otherwise since they disregard any critics about it (until now, let's hope it changes.)
This mans a true gamer, a man of the people, the chosen one here to voice the opinions of Bethesda fans. This was spot on dude, I Love that you didn’t sugar coat anything, you’re not alone in your disappointment.
Don't be a Bethesda fan. The Bethesda you loved is gone it just took you a while to realise it. Lots of people came to this realization a long time ago.
you are all part of the problem; oblivion was the moment in which it all started going downhill; I understand bethesda's confusion since all they've done since oblivion is the same thing and NOW people complain? well some of us have been complaining since oblivion and starfield is just the logical end stage.
It's different because you're not regarding it through a hyper critical lens. I've played everything they've put out from oblivion onwards & all of them have strengths & weaknesses. I've watched a lot of starfield critiques & i read the comments & i see a lot of people robbing themselves of potential fun.
The space station lady’s “go get my rich entitled ass an expensive drink” quest in a location you can’t fast travel to really has become gaming’s new height. I can’t forget that quest either, it was so riveting! It bought me seconds of precious boredom
I too am a massive BGS fan, started with Morrowind 20 years ago. I've had my gripes with their games since but I still loved the hell out of them. This one though like you said is soulless. Which is so weird because Sci-fi is a genre with literally infinite possibilities for creativity. It's the copy and pasted repeat locations for me, that are carbon copies down to the corpse and note placements, even the loot placement. The main draw of their games for me has always been exploration, piecing the small details together and figuring out what happened at a specific location, it's like crack. This game is like Skyrim if every single nordic ruin was a carbon copy of bleak falls barrow, and every single cave was a carbon copy of Chillwind Depths, and every location where you found a word of power was identical. Soulless is the right word.
No alien races, no factions that lock you out of content unless you make another character to join those factions, no interesting lore. What kind of Sci-Fi is this? Lol
As long as Emil Tagliatelle is employed at Bethesda they will have the toxic positivism and can't listen to their buyers, and thus just produce boring games.
Sad truth is he’s in a position where he likely won’t be fired by Xbox overlords bc money is fake. We will have to wait for his retirement 😢. Seems sad to root against someone like that but it’s as if your favorite sports teams’ head coach suddenly refusing to have a game plan. You don’t want to root for someone’s failure but your personal attachment to the team supersedes sympathy for the person directly and ignorantly hurting what you care about
You're being harsh. He can stay, they just need to keep him from having an impact on any project. Toilets and floors will always need cleaning, maybe that would be his true calling.
@@HorseArmour At least one of us does. At this point I am going to pirate the game if I care to give it a try. They literally lost me as a customer YEARS ago. Fallout 4 was the beginning of the end, and Fallout 76 was it for me. That's when I checked out for good. I figured if Star Field was good there might be a chance. But, we see how that turned out.
Forget about ES6 one of 2 things is going to happen.... 1: create a really poor copy paste with the same engine for a cash grab 2: bethesda goes under and is sold to someone who will turn out an ES6 thats "thier" vision of what THEY want. just enjoy what we have, and wait for someone to create something new within OUR preferences. F-76/Starfield/Shittered space all point toward the end. they should have employed the modders instead of this method of unpaid staff a long time ago. ps: i am 60 yrs old and started gaming by adapting an a broken pub desktop asteroids machine, theres a pattern to game developers that age can see.
Wow, very nice. I think people in your age range are a rarity to come by who are gamers. It's surprising to see that even the youth know that Bethesda is a mess right now. That's saying something. I'll just add that, your second point might be a stretch because Bethesda is owned by Microsoft now. No way they will sell the IP. If anything Bethesda will lose more street cred, and Microsoft will punish them. I think this has already happened to a degree. I'm speculating but I don't think Pete Hines left Bethesda just because he was ready to retire. I could be wrong, but I'm almost certain that they had to send a message and either he could walk out on his own or get fired directly. Microsoft bought Bethesda for that sweet sweet Skyrim money. And as Star Field being their first release under Microsoft, I don't think the executives are very happy with the results. We'll see what the future holds.
@@HouseJambo M$ owns bethesda ? , well that explains a lot, i retract my predictions because M$ being involved means anything could happen as they dont game, they follow the dollar only, even a boycott wont work with M$ as they will dump it all in the trash when the profit margin drops because they dont care about the gamers, they care about the margins only....we are left hoping new and upcoming dev houses will produce something similiar .
@@lifestooshorttostress519 Once Lost Games perhaps, they're a startup company made from the original devs that worked on Arena, Dagggerfall, and some Morrowind devs I believe. It's going to be more Daggerfall inspired. Should be great for Daggerfall fans. I'm more of a Morrowind fan personally, but I'll be looking with interest.
I remember playing Pong in the arcades, first run...my first video game was an ASCII Star Trek on a TRS-80 when I was with my mom when she was attending junior college (a port of that, for Windows 95 mode, called Wintrek, exists). Serious question - my four favorite video games are Dragon Quest VIII, Dragon Quest V, Final Fantasy VI, and Dragon Quest VI (Chrono Trigger fifth)...based on my list, do you think that I would I enjoy any of the Bethesda games? (And if anyone says Fallout 76, so help me Jim F'n Sterling Son, I will serenade them with "Country Roads"...at 3 am...stone cold sober! (My awful voice is somewhat better if I'm drunk, so no Mister B-Double O-Z-E for me! 😅😅)
Reminder that the most interesting thing Emil Pagliarulo ever wrote was the Fallout 4 protag being a war criminal and he immediately retracted it because ruh roh that's not le heckin reddit wholesome chungus, oopsie.
Dude I picked up morrowind again and downloaded TR and it's incredible. There's so much love in everything, the environments, the quests, plenty of characters have unique dialogue, and it has as much content as the base game (for now)
We wanted skyrim in space, instead we got daggerfall in space... In Morrowind the last fighters guild quest eliminated the theives guild... I miss those consequences
Don't you dare insult daggerfall by comparing it to starfield. It's actually a good game if you're into early CRPGs like Tales of Might and Magic, alongside actually looking fantastic with good sprite work for the era. We got fallout 3 in space.
AT least Daggerfall had all the concepts Morrowind had other than like Mysticism I believe.... now that I'm thinking about it probably Thaumaturgy. And then we lost Mysticism, climbing, and something else in Oblivion, and then we lost even more stuff in Skyrim.
The main thing I missed going from Oblivion to Skyrim was the ability to create and customise our own spells…like a real sorcerer should. Having all offensive magic as a bunch of pre-set effects which you couldn’t chain to make stronger or more interesting….That was a big mistake. It also made no sense lore wise, that spell making would somehow be forgotten.
The one quest that stood out to me in Starfield was when I had to go back and forth finding the mining equipment. It stands out because after half an hour of just fast travelling and talking to people, I was so bored I switched the Xbox off and went and did the dishes instead. The next day, I uninstalled it and I haven’t been back to it since. Neither do I have any wish to ever again.
The animation dances appear to be the same dance from the early 2000s game POSTAL 2. The sex club dancers. Remember the gimp? Anyway...same poses and moves 20 years later. Now sign my damned petition.
I suspect your channels gonna struggle because you started too strong, this is too good. You're not smelling it right lol come on, you put 80% of bethesdas fanbases thoughts in video format and lil Emilio blocked you for it.
New Vegas Fans: we know your pain brother, our paladins have stood by your side in the shadows for eons waiting for you to finally see the enemies in the darkness with us
FUN FACT: in order to publish videogame content on TH-cam, they literally force you to smell John Starfield's socks. that's why so many personally detest his guts
I've also been replaying Oblivion recently after getting disappointed yet again with Skyrim and Starfield and the contrast between the design philosophies is striking. Your point about Thoronir's quest was spot on, it was one of the first side quests I did and I was immediately hooked and developed a genuine relationship with him after the fact. I never had that kind of connection to a character in a more modern Bethesda game.
Elder Scrolls 6 will be half complete, purposely made an empty shell of a game, and they'll sell you the rest of it one quest at a time for 10$ on top of the 30$ DLC's.
I think that Bethesda’s effort hasn’t changed. It’s just reapplicated elsewhere, like bigger maps. What? There was supposed to be something in said maps? Nah, that can’t be right.
Thanks for putting this into words @HorseArmor. It mirrors exactly how I've been feeling about both Bethesda and Ubisoft the last several months or so.
After 13 years the only "real" rpg Bethesda has released is Starfield... They've found the time to re-release Skyrim about a dozen times, they've found the time to make one of the worst mmo's I have ever played, and they have found the time to scam, oh sorry I mean milk parents wallets with FO76 microtransactions. Then we get Starfield, a game so devoid of any soul and passion it has turned some of Bethesda's most loyal fans against them (like me). TES6 is going to absolutely suck, and the way Bethesda has been turning Starfield mods into microtransactions is such a giant red flag I can't even. BGS has gone down the corporate greed rabbit hole and they are never coming back. Capitalism has killed every single video game company I loved and grew up with, the only saving grace of video games right now are the indie devs, fuckin' sucks.
@@autumnsierra2401 I just prefer skyrim more because the foundation is less specific and more so just the perfect slate to work with. I've as of installed over 240 mods on my current staging folder and I am having a blast. From cleanly chopping enemies limbs off with swords and axes, to playing headcrap baseball with a mace and Warhammer, to visuals that look like the game released in 2022, infamous mods like Apokalypse magic and Ordinator, A complete UI overhaul, it's all in that Modpack and it feels like it's the skyrim I never knew I wanted to play. What makes it even better is that I made that modlist myself and I am incredibly proud of myself with that one because in those 300h I invested into skyrim again, the game never crashed once out of nowhere and only did so when I made a mistake with loadorders or when having to rename files witb certain extentions for them to be able to affect the game.
Until Bethesda releases a stupid update which breaks 90% of your mods list and renders the game unplayable. I had the perfect 300+ modlist, mods that haven't been updated in eight years, but Bethesda ruins it all so they can try to sell me some buggy mods that are just knock offs of the originals.
@@j.avance9031 valid concern, however rollbacks exist and you can easily reverse an update as long as you keep an Backup of your modlist and game version the modlist was made for
Hearing the way Todd was hyping up the features of this game while remembering how past Bethesda games completely dropped the ball on their promises told me that Starfield was going to be a severe disappointment... Was severely surprised that it was so much worse than that. I won't be surprised if ES6 just tells players to make up their own story in-game at this point.
@@HorseArmoursince he suggested you Kenshi, i would suggest Kenshi space cousin to you, try out X4: foundations, it is a space sim though, but it's way better than Starfield. Also if you want a medieval version try out Mount and Blade.
I cannot really tell you how much I agree. There was like a two decent quests that made an impact on the game but that's it. The Mantis questline (side quest) in which you get the Mantis armour and ship, it would make space Raiders recognize the ship and run away, so basically a unique interaction. The other was the Terrormorph questline but all it really does is remove heatleeches from major cities and whatnot, I got some free CC credits so I got the quest Project Mammon which was also decent, but that's basically it.. Everything feels hollow in the game.
I DO remember mantis. I kinda left that out in the video but not on purpose. That was also a quest that stood out, but I think it stood out because it felt kinda "random" like in a classic bethesda way.
@@HorseArmour totally agree, kinda like the Superhuman Gambit quest does in Fallout 3, it's short and sweet but really good and does have some actual impact on the game.
I've seen this coming since oblivion was worse than morrowind. There were regressions between those two titles that shouldn't have happened. Skyrim was good more by luck than anything gameplay related. The world just happened to work right after the (required) mods to get weather effects and increase the difficulty. Even Skyrim failed the modding scene terribly - there's no way to get meaningful crash logs or any debug information about mods or mod conflicts out of the engine. That was borderline inexcusable, but we gave them a pass due to the graphics and writing. Well now the graphics and writing have become the next victims of decay, and only now that the games are reduced to absolutely nothing at all does anyone care. They didn't care when Fallout 4 was released half unfinished, they didn't care when Fallout 76 was a complete disaster (they're still fucking playing it). I hope this game is finally bad enough to get these bandwagon jumping tourists to stop buying this series
friend, Bethesda is but a husk of what it represented back in 2011. i lost count of how many times they sold skyrim, on ps3, on ps4, on ps5, nintendo switch, legendary edition, anniversary edition... starfield has no soul because it represents what bethesda is nowdays. they also tried to pull one like in skyrim but with fallout4 and they did it, im doubting there will be any fallout again, maybe a elder scrolls, but fallout... with all the politics that is that game itself...
I got about twenty hours into Starfield before I started losing the will to live, shortly after that I put godmode on just to get to the end quicker. It's obvious that the talent has left the company, the people they have there now could never make something like Morrowind or Oblivion.
Morrowboomer here. Glad to see there are still fans out there with good taste and standards. Have you given Baldur’s Gate 3 a try? It dropped around the same time as Starfield and was FAR more fun. The latest update has a mod manager baked in, so it’s gonna last at least another decade with unlimited content.
Love the term Morrowboomer by the way. But yeah I’ve played a bit of Baldurs Gate, it’s an awesome game. And I need to check out the new update for sure dude
Even after Starfield, I still had hope that Elder Scrolls 6 maybe a good game... That was until Todd Howard himself thought the reason why Starfield was disliked was because it's too different from their past games. Now I have no hope at all for Elder Scrolls 6
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Hahahahah your channel name being HorseArmour is exceptional 😂 I think that, sadly, it’s similar to the way people have been expecting Star Wars to somehow ever be like the first trilogy again, and it’s just never going to happen. There have been fun bits and some good spinoffs but most of it is soulless. We just have to learn to move on and find new worlds to fall in love with, and accept that these won’t be Bethesda’s worlds.
Emil Pagliarulo saying to "love games, buy them, play them and complain to your heart' s content" is everything what's wrong with game developers. Why would I not wait for reviews from the sources I trust before buying the game? Why should I blindly rush with my wallet and experience a train wreck I could avoid by simply researching if the game is good. Developers like him give a bare minimum and expect gamers to love his games and spend a LOT of money on them only to feel cheated that the studio that created masterpieces like Morrowind could shit out something as soulless like Starfield. Verify games you think you want to buy thoroughly, don't spend your money carelessly, these companies only exist because of OUR money. I think the time has come where people finally see how lazy and uninspired most games from big publishers are. Only us consumers can decide which companies thrive and which wither. Let's hope all recent flops like Concord, Star Wars Outlaws make a change in a media we love so much.
hard same man. shit is heartbreaking because i feel like i lost a old friend. Bethesda knows that they are gonna get box sales because they are living on old glory and the modding community.
Agreed with everything you say. I loved oblivion, sank hundreds of hours into it over the years. Fallout 4, loved it, liked Skyrim but never quite loved it as much but still hundreds of hours into it. I played star field for 3 hours and that was more than enough for me. Haven’t played it since and I had been looking forward to it since the first images. And when the devs say “you can’t say you don’t like our game because you don’t make computer games” that kinda falls flat to me because I did computer games design and development at university and computer science so 🤷 nah it’s not a great game. Now Cyberpunk 2077, that’s a great game 😂 Great video!
As a huge fallout fan I completely agree we ain’t had a decent game developed by Bethesda since fallout 4 and although I love that game a lot didn’t. Really hope Bethesda fix up soon or thing will only get worse unfortunately 😓
Oblivion is a really special game, for me. I've not found a better description for how I feel about it other than "comfortable." It's like a warm shower, a hot drink on a winter morning, or that feeling of sitting in a comfy chair with slippers after a day at work. 😂 Every time I boot up Oblivion I can sit there and quite happily play any single part of it with a smile on my face that goes from ear to ear. It's wonderful to me and I'm entirely biased for it. And nothing Bethesda has done has ever come close again. I liked their other games, some far more than others and I've played them a lot, as well. But nothing even came close to what I feel like playing Oblivion. I actually just got through finally trying Starfield lately and my biggest gripe through ALL of its problems is that I never felt like anything more than an insert that had been crudely pressed into the story. No one seemed to care in any capacity that I was the leader of X faction, that I'd achieved X objective that had completely helped the galaxy, that I was a walking embodiment of the Blood God and people were still like, "herr you are too rookie for this, rook!" I know that previous paragraph is an issue that can be levelled - in some capacity or another - at all Bethesda games but I never felt it in complete totality like I did with Starfield. If that's going to be the level of it going forward, that's going to be what kills Bethesda for me.
The problem with Bethesda isn't bad writers, it's fundamentally misunderstanding the appeal of your games. Bethesda will write "oh, you're the person who finished that quest" in random chatter. Obsidian will write "oh you're the person with this faction reputation who solved the quest in this one of 3 ways" and suddenly that tiny bit of investment in writing 3 arguably inconsequential endings to a quest and having 3 reaction lines makes the place feel like your choices matter. Even if there is no actual branching storylines, or the branches are minor. Getting access to faction safehouses in FNV? Minimal work, but great impact. Bethesda games are always afraid of locking you out of content - Oblivion last did it with some quests having skill bars, but that's about it. It doesn't help that Starfield makes it really hard to consistently see the thing Bethesda is really good at: Environmental storytelling. It's the one redeeming thing about 76, their signature ruined place with 4 notes telling an ironic story doesn't fit into the world, both mechanically and tonally. They wanted to be Elite, but didn't know why people like Elite. They think they're the "these NPCs are not scripted" radiant AI and quests company, but people still play Skyrim looking for handmade content (by Bethesda or modders), not generated busywork. Todd quite clearly thinks you want to play one save forever, not play one game several times with different flavors.
I think Bethesda's management team just does not have the skills to direct such a large studio. They got too big for their britches. Their most loved games came from teams with less than half the size of their current team. When you start expanding your studio to be the size of modern AAA studios you need very special people at the helm that have a vision for the final product. Starfield feels like every department in the studio worked in a vacuum without knowing at all what the other was doing. None of the game fits together and its clear they all were working on their own. Which then lead to probably a lot of work being scrapped because it conflicted with some other departments work. Then you end up with copy pasted crap, exploration/base building that is almost useless, boring questing, and an armor/defense system that seems almost stapled on. Its the result of clueless management that could not direct their individual teams towards a shared vision. They had no vision. It was all just groping blindly in the dark until the plopped out Starfield. I think the Bethesda we loved is dead and gone. If they have any hope of reviving it, they will need a huge management shakeup at Bethesda. I still don't think it will ever return to the heights it was, but it may be able to get back to making decent games.
My very first Bethesda game was Oblivion, and the current state of BGS breaks my heart. At this point, I don't hold ANY hopes for The Elder Scrolls 6. I'm keeping up with the news, but that's pretty much it. Thank you for making this video, it sums up my thoughts pretty well.
I remember when the generation began, I was really looking forward to playing Everwild, Avowed, Hellblade 2, so many other games that have either come and gone in a whimper, or were cancelled because of console/platform politics, and ES6 was always the Goliath on the horizon, and when it arrived, I’ll have looked back on the greatest console gen ever, hoping to be greeted by the next. Then reality sank in. Consoles crossed so many lines this gen-none of them being good-that I jumped onto PC again, with the recent sentiment that ES6 might actually be so good it’ll save the industry. And as I watched this video, I realised it’s been months since I thought anything about ES6. Indies and ‘older’ games are where it’s at, and looking at the state of the people running the AAA market, and their dramas, ties to actual evil, I realise one game can’t make the industry better overnight, especially not one under current-gen Microsofts umbrella. It’s really sad how much that’s released or on the horizon just seems like ugly, buggy, unconsumable mud soup.
Bethesda patched the soul out of Starfield leaving an empty sanitary husk that is only good to put insomniacs to sleep. You should be angry! We all should! A Bethesda fan uses glitches to enhance the experience, and those little quirks are what make ALL Bethesda titles! Bethesda new they had a 20 hour game at best, so they decided on the forced wait and load screens to extend play time. The flaw in that coffee cup is what makes it your favorite, sure the coffee tastes the same out of that shiny new mug but the experience is less satisfying. So is the fate of Starfield!
@@acev3521 Yes the game was always lack luster. The Soul of Bethesda is not the games, the tiny little flaws and code glitches are what made EVERY other Bethesda title a gem. Those games were FAR from perfect, but the small imperfections are what made the previous titles PLAYABLE beyond a handful of hours. Those flaws are the SOUL of Bethesda games. This all started with FO '76, and they went all in on starfield and the Elder Scrolls 6 does not look like they are going to change back, so Bethesda is DEAD! R.I.P.
I am sad given Bethesda's state but glad that people are seeing Bethesda for who they are, nothing will change until they invest big into new staff & revitalise every aspect of the studio
@@HorseArmour It was like that for me too, yeah... And I dunno why but I can never stomach playing oblivion. Maybe there's a way to patch the game to make it a bit more... easy to play, just like, crashing and resolution and stuff, but I've always felt really closed out of that game despite everyone loving it.
Starfield is the summation of all of the growing anti-synergies that Bethesda has been tacking onto it's games since oblivion. Every new game since has decreased in quality of writing, coherency of skills / perk trees, and engagement.
What I'm about to say pertains only to writing and narrative: in a world after new vegas, we got skyrim, in a world after witcher 2 we got fallout 4, in a world after cyberpunk 2077 and witcher 3 we got starfield, in a world after baldurs gate... Daily reminder that the person that wrote "you wouldn't understand" and wanted fallout 4 to have a blade runner intrigue, is now most likely writing fallout 5, god help us “Who created the artifacts?” “The creators duh”, yeah fuck bethesda
Yeah the game was shockingly bad. Of course it's funny on some level, but I sincerely can't understand how they can stand behind this quality of work and act like it's acceptable.
Love the channel name and love the obscure video shitting on Starfield. I agree as well, I don't think Bethesda will recover from this, Id love to be proven wrong when ES6 comes out but only time will tell.
i fully agree! it feels like one of the biggest issues as well is that the writing is no longer fun; all footage i’ve seen of starfield, it’s like there’s no personalization or attempt at writing funny characters or stories anymore :(
I put hundreds of hours into Morrowind and I cried for the Oblivion trailer. That one Oblivion quest where you have to murder the guys in the house one at a time like a slasher movie❤🔥💝💖
As a fan of Bethesda since Morrowind. I can't possibly agree more. I have been excited for Elder Scrolls 6 since Skyrim, hearing the engine updates they did for Starfield, specifically for Elder Scrolls 6 made me even more excited... then seeing Starfield.. and having Emil and Todd saying that they're happy and proud of how Starfield turned out.. kills me inside.
A Ubisoft or EA could never break my herat like that. I really need to care about something for it to hurt like this. Bethesda meant something to so many of us and then just realising they ain't got it anymore and that they don't care anymore is so damn painful. I will never have those amazing experiences again, because they just can't deliver them anymore.
Thank you for the Oblivion reminder, I have forgotten more than I can recall….it was good wasn’t it. Those sprawling sewer sections…wow. So much of Oblivion was really well made and enthralling….Apart from the cheesy graphics, it is hard to believe it’s almost twenty years old.
0:47 in hindsight I'm disappointed that starfield is even a thing. It definitely pushed back ES6 even if they say it didn't. Also saw your latest video and now this one and just want to say to keep it up man! You make some funny jokes, and your opinion is well thought out. Subbed for sure!
I appreciate it man. And yeah I’ve said to someone else that I think it might be a good thing that Starfield came before TES6. Maybe they learned a few lessons 😂
You spoke many of my words in this video. I also hit the 30-40 hr mark and literally hit quit game, in a random spot in a play session, done with it. It was like Forrest Gump when he was all of a sudden done with running lol. I tried it again after the buggy came out, downloaded some cool free mods, and maybe got another 10 hrs before uninstalling, nowhere close to finishing the main story. I already purchased the DLC with my original purchase, but have no intention of downloading it. Like you, I can tell from watching reviews that it aint for me. Once I saw those stupid looking blue ghost like characters, yeah..nah, I'm good.
Same dude, about 35-40 hours before I uninstalled. First 10 hours were almost unbearable, but it picked up for a few hours when I found the abandoned ship with zero grav, that was genuinely interesting. After that, I spent 15-20 hours hoping to run into something that was just as fun, but it never came. So insanely boring, I regret preordering it and won't bother to check out the DLC I got as a bonus for it
When I first heard your voice I immediately thought you were going to tell me story about how your buddy Keith played a Bethesda game one time but something horrible happened. You sound like Ellis from L4D2 😂 love the video man
A screenshot of the exotic dancers alone was enough to tell me everything I needed to know about Starfield early on. Bland, made by committee, non-immersive, and made by people who cannot physically handle confrontation or a no- that shit is toxic positivity: the design- because holy shit- I would never walk into ANY establishment that had dancers like these. No one on Earth, not even those at Bethesda, thought that design was good, they just nodded timidly. Can't be mean, lest you get sent to HR...
House Va Ruun was probably faction I was most interested out of starfields kinda meager offerings, so I was kinda excited to give shatter space a try since I already technically owned it (I had the deluxe edition). I got to the new planet, saw that it was not the trippy psychedelic alien jungle I had envisioned in my head from previous established lore (I mean the embassy is literally overgrown with cool trippy plants) but instead a barren desert world with sparse plants dotted around. One that looks and feels very much like any other planet (DOES NOT FEEL "HAND CRAFTED") and I just.. made it about halfway through the very short campaign, got bored and went to play another game. 😅 It's just a semi-unique looking town with 70% of the NPCs in it begging you to do side quests for them that lead you to very generic non-unique locations.
As someone who used to be a Bethesda fanboy from the beginning, I hate that I have to agree with this video. I remember waiting with bated breath for the release of Skyrim after experiencing what they had to offer with Morrowind and Oblivion. But over time, it's clear that their focus on depth and storytelling has faded, with Starfield being their most uninspired release yet. Even Fallout 4, which had its flaws, offered a far more immersive and well-crafted narrative compared to the shallow experience Starfield provides.
I think "uninspired" is a great way to put it. Not that they weren't inspired to make something like Starfield, because it was Todd Howards dream game. But the fact that they drifted so far from what makes a "bethesda" game a bethesda game is what is surprising to me. 'Preciate the comment random internet person
I'm sorry to say this, but you can grief the Bethesda you were in love with. They still have Todd, they still have Emil (which isn't a good point for the later imo), but most of the team isn't the same, so they are simply not "your BGS" and will never be.
Now, they still own the licenses you like, so lets hope the hit they took with Starfield's reception manage to push them to find a new identity. However, it came probably too late too expect much from ES6
Starfield doesn’t feel like a thing a load of really excited people have made to be the most fun it could. It feels like a managed product designed and built in a weird bubble. There’s no spark, it’s like going back to place where you had an amazing party and trying your best to HAVE FUN AGAIN. You just end up a bit sad.
@@HorseArmour I can top that, actually.
"Degraded". It started with Skyrim's "radiant quests" and now progressed fully into Starfield's development, which is a clear indication that development team don't see the obvious. Procedural generating in everything, the touted "forever game" where you do the same thing every new game+.
Bethesda made a name from hand-crafted content... well.
THEY RETURNED TO THE WAY THINGS WERE IN DAGGERFAL. Daggerfal. The game that in industry standards is practically antediluvian.
I was a massive fan girl. Same with Ubisoft. I now couldn't give a stuff about either.
TH-cam really dropped me a mythical quality video from a small youtuber with one video, am I alive?
TH-cam has been doing this to me about once a week for hte past couple months, and I love it.
@@vampire847same
I agree.
It just popped up for me I love it
In my controversial opinion, there's been a noticeable decline even in their most popular works, like Skyrim. Flawed and disjointed gameplay systems, their approach of everything being optional, it has been showing for a while and Starfield is where there's no longer an appealing magical veil hiding it. I made a video essay/mini documentary about procedural generation and how (and why) it so often fails, looking at No Man's Sky, Minecraft, and lesser known titles. It's weird, Bethesda seems to have bet a lot on procedural generation but they also barely did anything with it.
I watched your Minecraft video and... wow, what a trip
I blame Emil Pagliorulo’s shit take on game development and writing
I loved Skyrim though great music and atmosphere
I think Prod. Gen. could work to make a lively Open world. But you'd have to be a really good designer with a vision of whom none of this folk in AAA development are.
They can't even make an autonomous open world by hand. Skyrim isn't an open world. It's just a large level.
Skyrim was trash. Dumbed down RPG mechanics and terrible writing. Still, it was worlds away from the garbage they are serving up now.
You know Starfield is cooked when modders don't even really care about improving it all that much.
They really can't. It is too broken to fix.
@@Grubnar its not even so much that its broken, its more that its fundamentally flawed basically at the conceptual level. they basically got rid of all of the stuff that made skyrim and the others engaging and immersive and replaced it with 5 mile hikes to one of a couple dozen copy and pasted setpieces. emergent gameplay, quality lore, decent writing (sometimes) random encounters, environmental storytelling, those were their strengths and we got so little of any of it in starfield its baffling how tonedeaf they are
It’s too boring. People want to mod games that have more compelling worlds and gameplay to better envision the character they want to play. Hence why their earlier entries still get a lot of mod entries even to this day. Few would want to expend effort on writing their own characters in a boring setting.
The writing in Bethesda games was never their strong point, but somehow it's gotten worse.
Yeah, by Todd's admission - they literally do not have dedicated writers 💀
@@antonypavlovsky3386I would say you’re wrong, because they’ve had Emil since Bloodmoon, but he’s not a writer, so I think you’re back to being correct.
Has it really gotten worse, or have we just become sick of the same formula?
Is it Bethesda or have other studios upped their - no pun intended - game and exposed Bethesda's lackluster efforts?
@@antonypavlovsky3386right, they have "quest designers".
@@pauln6803i think gamers have just become cynical & over analytical thanks to a surfeit of online critiques.
You're trained to search for faults & focus on those, as opposed to just taking the rough with the smooth.
Games have changed of course, but the way we play games, our attitude to playing games, has changed more.
"you're not smelling it right" got me
incredible that Starfield's Sharted Face DLC has people defending it
I think it’s completely fine for people to enjoy it, but the people defending it feel like a very small minority of the target audience haha
Cognitive dissonance is a wonderful thing.
The masses are like flies, drawn to things that those with good taste would never choose
This is why people with bad taste don’t like starfield and play something like wu kong
@@musclecargarage2875yeah, because it’s way better, der
Enjoying and actively defending things that are inexcusable is fundamentally different
The best "Starfield" DLC was Mothership Zeta... and that's saying something.
God.. what a good DLC..
@@HorseArmour recently finnished that, that explosion when the Zeta ship exploded and i'm playing it on my 360, just wow.
Oh no Bethesda, you know you fucked up when the Horse Armour itself is mad at you.
by the 5th re release of skyrim, you would suspect something was up
Skyrim was the milk machine, and that baby is dry
They made a big mistake. They decided to make us wait so they could monetize Skyrim over and over again.
By doing that they forgot how to make a game with the „Bethesda recipe“. They forgot what fans liked and want.
tbh i only saw those as just adding more content, i wasnt too upset about it, but now looking back at it im seeing the signs😂
For me Fallout 4 was a rude wake up call to reality.
@@Vert_GreenHeart
Fallout New Vegas was my wake-up.
The dialogue and writing in that game made me realise Bethesda has shoddy writing.
I've recently replayed Skyrim, and to be honest it's a chore.
The Thieves Guild storyline is alright, but everything else is practically indistinguishable.
And that's without getting into the radiant quests.
Fallout 4... Couldn't even finish it, the dialogue was so poor.
And what's up with the wobbly animations during dialogue?
Getting blocked by emil is like a badge if honor. I salute you sir 🫡
Bethesda NEEDS to hire proper writers, this is so important right now.
Sure the engine is outdated, so is the game design. But I think players would have been way more forgiving towards Starfield if it was just ...well written, with memorable characters and quests. Last year's transition from Starfield to Phantom Liberty has been eye-opening for a lot of people, those two are not even playing in the same league.
The writing type and quality didn't change since fallout 3 however. For those used to play games like neverwinter, baldur's gate, mass effect etc... The writing issue was always a thing. But they had a pass because the map and exploration definitely balanced that flaw, but they were in no mean good rpgs
But now you have a company who was acclaimed for years for their work, to the point where they just don't seem to listen to critics, who throw away the only best point they had, their map, making obvious they don't even understand their former good perks.
As long we keep seeing the selling point "bigger map and graphics" and not "smaller but deeper", I think it's fair to assume that we will never have a good surprise again from bgs
Honestly Bethesta probably needs to replace most of the staff to release good games again. Its not just Emil and Todd those two also hired people and have molded the people under them into what they want. I dont believe that there is a strong base of developers who keep bringing forward good ideas that get vetoed by these two all the time ... I bet most of those developers already left and what is left either thinks the same as them or have lost all will to struggle against them. Like seriously especially in the writing department you would expect the other writers to get at least 1 or 2 good written sidequest smuggled past Emil but there are literally none in the game so I can only assume nobody is trying anymore....
@@chidori0117 That's most likely because a big part of bgs already changed since morrowind / oblivion that they are at this point.
People always fail to see the difference between the company's name and the people making the games (the best example being probably infinity ward with call of duty). Sure, they still have Todd, and I think some good ideas came from him. But yet, he isn't Bethesda by himself.
So, agree, they need to replace a good chunk of their staff, but in any case, the Bethesda from ES4-5 will never come back, and for now, they seem to not be able to find their new identity neither.
@@docken1530 Bethesda's writing hasn't been good for a long time for sure, but I do think it's getting slightly worse with every iteration. Fallout 4's story was bad, but at least most of its companions minus Preston were pretty likeable folks imo. I wish I could say the same about Starfield.
@@Sylhux Ha, never said it wasn't worse, I totally agree the quality just keep getting lower, and it couldn't be otherwise since they disregard any critics about it (until now, let's hope it changes.)
Emily Pigonapillow is the curse that keeps on giving. The mages Guild needs to do an exorcism.
Emily PeepeePooPoo
Emil Whatsisname.
Send the brotherhood after him
He literally has LIAR in his 2nd name, you can't spell it correctly without LIAR
This mans a true gamer, a man of the people, the chosen one here to voice the opinions of Bethesda fans.
This was spot on dude, I Love that you didn’t sugar coat anything, you’re not alone in your disappointment.
‘Preciate it dude! Its insane how many people feel the same way, it’s easy to feel alone as a Bethesda fan 😂 We’re in the right place
Don't be a Bethesda fan. The Bethesda you loved is gone it just took you a while to realise it. Lots of people came to this realization a long time ago.
I wasn't sure how to describe this feeling, but you hit the nail on the head. There's just something different about how Oblivion plays.
It hits way different
you are all part of the problem; oblivion was the moment in which it all started going downhill; I understand bethesda's confusion since all they've done since oblivion is the same thing and NOW people complain? well some of us have been complaining since oblivion and starfield is just the logical end stage.
It's different because you're not regarding it through a hyper critical lens.
I've played everything they've put out from oblivion onwards & all of them have strengths & weaknesses.
I've watched a lot of starfield critiques & i read the comments & i see a lot of people robbing themselves of potential fun.
@@Tamberoot aCtUaLlY tHe DoWnFaLl BeGaN wItH aReNa
@@brodericksiz625 😂😂😂 BINGO! haha
The space station lady’s “go get my rich entitled ass an expensive drink” quest in a location you can’t fast travel to really has become gaming’s new height. I can’t forget that quest either, it was so riveting! It bought me seconds of precious boredom
It’s like.. it was the most forgettable quest and that’s why i can’t forget it. It sucked so bad haha
Luckily i already found the drink before i found her so i never had to go through that
I too am a massive BGS fan, started with Morrowind 20 years ago. I've had my gripes with their games since but I still loved the hell out of them. This one though like you said is soulless. Which is so weird because Sci-fi is a genre with literally infinite possibilities for creativity. It's the copy and pasted repeat locations for me, that are carbon copies down to the corpse and note placements, even the loot placement. The main draw of their games for me has always been exploration, piecing the small details together and figuring out what happened at a specific location, it's like crack. This game is like Skyrim if every single nordic ruin was a carbon copy of bleak falls barrow, and every single cave was a carbon copy of Chillwind Depths, and every location where you found a word of power was identical. Soulless is the right word.
No alien races, no factions that lock you out of content unless you make another character to join those factions, no interesting lore. What kind of Sci-Fi is this? Lol
As long as Emil Tagliatelle is employed at Bethesda they will have the toxic positivism and can't listen to their buyers, and thus just produce boring games.
Don’t compare Tagliatelle to Bethesda ever again
Sad truth is he’s in a position where he likely won’t be fired by Xbox overlords bc money is fake. We will have to wait for his retirement 😢. Seems sad to root against someone like that but it’s as if your favorite sports teams’ head coach suddenly refusing to have a game plan. You don’t want to root for someone’s failure but your personal attachment to the team supersedes sympathy for the person directly and ignorantly hurting what you care about
You're being harsh. He can stay, they just need to keep him from having an impact on any project. Toilets and floors will always need cleaning, maybe that would be his true calling.
Toxic positivity is perfect criticism for bethesda, especially Emil.
@@Tottinette There is no "being too harsh", this clown has done nothing but write trash ever since Oblivion!
100% agree.. it is just sad..
Elder scrolls 6 will be a disaster
The company is lost - and only focused on money
I still have 1/1000th of a strand of hope. Fingers crossed
@@HorseArmour At least one of us does. At this point I am going to pirate the game if I care to give it a try. They literally lost me as a customer YEARS ago. Fallout 4 was the beginning of the end, and Fallout 76 was it for me. That's when I checked out for good. I figured if Star Field was good there might be a chance. But, we see how that turned out.
Forget about ES6
one of 2 things is going to happen....
1: create a really poor copy paste with the same engine for a cash grab
2: bethesda goes under and is sold to someone who will turn out an ES6 thats "thier" vision of what THEY want.
just enjoy what we have, and wait for someone to create something new within OUR preferences.
F-76/Starfield/Shittered space all point toward the end.
they should have employed the modders instead of this method of unpaid staff a long time ago.
ps: i am 60 yrs old and started gaming by adapting an a broken pub desktop asteroids machine, theres a pattern to game developers that age can see.
Got a video coming out soon about the creation engine. Also glad to see you're gaming and 60. keep it up sire!
Wow, very nice. I think people in your age range are a rarity to come by who are gamers. It's surprising to see that even the youth know that Bethesda is a mess right now. That's saying something.
I'll just add that, your second point might be a stretch because Bethesda is owned by Microsoft now. No way they will sell the IP. If anything Bethesda will lose more street cred, and Microsoft will punish them. I think this has already happened to a degree. I'm speculating but I don't think Pete Hines left Bethesda just because he was ready to retire. I could be wrong, but I'm almost certain that they had to send a message and either he could walk out on his own or get fired directly.
Microsoft bought Bethesda for that sweet sweet Skyrim money. And as Star Field being their first release under Microsoft, I don't think the executives are very happy with the results.
We'll see what the future holds.
@@HouseJambo M$ owns bethesda ? , well that explains a lot, i retract my predictions because M$ being involved means anything could happen as they dont game, they follow the dollar only, even a boycott wont work with M$ as they will dump it all in the trash when the profit margin drops because they dont care about the gamers, they care about the margins only....we are left hoping new and upcoming dev houses will produce something similiar .
@@lifestooshorttostress519 Once Lost Games perhaps, they're a startup company made from the original devs that worked on Arena, Dagggerfall, and some Morrowind devs I believe. It's going to be more Daggerfall inspired. Should be great for Daggerfall fans. I'm more of a Morrowind fan personally, but I'll be looking with interest.
I remember playing Pong in the arcades, first run...my first video game was an ASCII Star Trek on a TRS-80 when I was with my mom when she was attending junior college (a port of that, for Windows 95 mode, called Wintrek, exists).
Serious question - my four favorite video games are Dragon Quest VIII, Dragon Quest V, Final Fantasy VI, and Dragon Quest VI (Chrono Trigger fifth)...based on my list, do you think that I would I enjoy any of the Bethesda games?
(And if anyone says Fallout 76, so help me Jim F'n Sterling Son, I will serenade them with "Country Roads"...at 3 am...stone cold sober! (My awful voice is somewhat better if I'm drunk, so no Mister B-Double O-Z-E for me! 😅😅)
Reminder that the most interesting thing Emil Pagliarulo ever wrote was the Fallout 4 protag being a war criminal and he immediately retracted it because ruh roh that's not le heckin reddit wholesome chungus, oopsie.
At least the tamriel rebuilt team will continue to expand morrowind til the galaxy explodes.
Those are the folks that need to make ES6!
Dude I picked up morrowind again and downloaded TR and it's incredible. There's so much love in everything, the environments, the quests, plenty of characters have unique dialogue, and it has as much content as the base game (for now)
@@rickhapstley3866 Actually at the current moment TR has more content than Skyrim and Oblivion combined. It's fucking huge.
We wanted skyrim in space, instead we got daggerfall in space...
In Morrowind the last fighters guild quest eliminated the theives guild... I miss those consequences
Don't you dare insult daggerfall by comparing it to starfield. It's actually a good game if you're into early CRPGs like Tales of Might and Magic, alongside actually looking fantastic with good sprite work for the era.
We got fallout 3 in space.
AT least Daggerfall had all the concepts Morrowind had other than like Mysticism I believe.... now that I'm thinking about it probably Thaumaturgy. And then we lost Mysticism, climbing, and something else in Oblivion, and then we lost even more stuff in Skyrim.
You got procedural generated Skyrim in space. A vast ocean one inch deep. Daggerfall has more depth than any of their modern games.
The main thing I missed going from Oblivion to Skyrim was the ability to create and customise our own spells…like a real sorcerer should. Having all offensive magic as a bunch of pre-set effects which you couldn’t chain to make stronger or more interesting….That was a big mistake. It also made no sense lore wise, that spell making would somehow be forgotten.
The one quest that stood out to me in Starfield was when I had to go back and forth finding the mining equipment. It stands out because after half an hour of just fast travelling and talking to people, I was so bored I switched the Xbox off and went and did the dishes instead. The next day, I uninstalled it and I haven’t been back to it since. Neither do I have any wish to ever again.
I never even realized the amount of fast traveling that you do in Starfield. Man… your comment brought back memories that I pushed WAYYY down.
The animation dances appear to be the same dance from the early 2000s game POSTAL 2.
The sex club dancers. Remember the gimp? Anyway...same poses and moves 20 years later.
Now sign my damned petition.
0:39 I wasnt hyped and was quite taken aback by all the excited from people. A part of me knew something was up
When I first heard about Starfield, my very first thought was, "Okay . . . who asked for this?"
I suspect your channels gonna struggle because you started too strong, this is too good. You're not smelling it right lol come on, you put 80% of bethesdas fanbases thoughts in video format and lil Emilio blocked you for it.
Made a new twitter though. He can’t stop me
My favorite game of all time is Oblivion too. It will always hold a special place in my heart for how much enjoyment i got out of it as a child.
New Vegas Fans: we know your pain brother, our paladins have stood by your side in the shadows for eons waiting for you to finally see the enemies in the darkness with us
Same feeling, just so disappointed! About 5 hours into Shattered Space I had the same moment and just... stopped. Sigh...
Big sigh :(
FUN FACT: in order to publish videogame content on TH-cam, they literally force you to smell John Starfield's socks. that's why so many personally detest his guts
I love "fun facts"!
fun facts are fun. thats a fact. a fun fact if you will
@@HorseArmour That would actually be a “fun fun fact”.
@@jeffreywood924 close, it’s actually a fun fun fact fact
I've also been replaying Oblivion recently after getting disappointed yet again with Skyrim and Starfield and the contrast between the design philosophies is striking. Your point about Thoronir's quest was spot on, it was one of the first side quests I did and I was immediately hooked and developed a genuine relationship with him after the fact. I never had that kind of connection to a character in a more modern Bethesda game.
Looking back on skyrim now after a decade, you can really see the glaring cracks in that games armor.
I’ve been a Bethesda fan going back to ES arena, the first 20 second teaser almost a decade ago had my so hyped and the game broke my heart
Elder Scrolls 6 will be half complete, purposely made an empty shell of a game, and they'll sell you the rest of it one quest at a time for 10$ on top of the 30$ DLC's.
I'm really holding onto a thread of hope with ES6...
Bro how can you have hop
I've never heard of you before, but with a name like that and a video like this it''s a strong start. Algo doing good for once.
I was trying to think of what to call Emil’s general disposition on social media and in interviews and toxic positivity is spot on.
Fitting youtuber name for a fitting video for a fitting situation.
I mean, that oblivion quest is awesome. They just can’t come up with that any more. Their writers are done.
I think that Bethesda’s effort hasn’t changed.
It’s just reapplicated elsewhere, like bigger maps.
What? There was supposed to be something in said maps? Nah, that can’t be right.
I hope you put out more content. It’s very entertaining 👍
Btw. I feel exactly the same way as you about Bethesda and their latest games.
Thanks a bunch! And yeah it certainly is difficult to have some hope for Bethesda these days. Idk how I’m still hanging on 😭
Thanks for putting this into words @HorseArmor. It mirrors exactly how I've been feeling about both Bethesda and Ubisoft the last several months or so.
was thinking the same thing cuzzo
duhhhhh
stop making me want to play oblivion, how rude
*casts spell that makes you play oblivion*
@@HorseArmour Stop! You've violated the law!
I love you channel already, just from it's name alone already, excellent choice.
After 13 years the only "real" rpg Bethesda has released is Starfield... They've found the time to re-release Skyrim about a dozen times, they've found the time to make one of the worst mmo's I have ever played, and they have found the time to scam, oh sorry I mean milk parents wallets with FO76 microtransactions. Then we get Starfield, a game so devoid of any soul and passion it has turned some of Bethesda's most loyal fans against them (like me). TES6 is going to absolutely suck, and the way Bethesda has been turning Starfield mods into microtransactions is such a giant red flag I can't even. BGS has gone down the corporate greed rabbit hole and they are never coming back. Capitalism has killed every single video game company I loved and grew up with, the only saving grace of video games right now are the indie devs, fuckin' sucks.
I appreciate your comment and wholeheartedly agree with you. I'm CONSTANTLY on the lookout for exciting new indie titles. It seems like our last hope
I have no faith for ES VI…
Be strong brother
I'm sorry you had that experience. I'm 1500 hours in and I love it. :)
That’s a LOT of hours holy moly. Hey dude I envy you, glad you enjoy the game!
Youre better off modding skyrim to the game you want to play, it aint getting better than that game
I've been sinking hours into daggerfall unity and I've never had so much fun with a Bethesda game since oblivion.
@@autumnsierra2401 I just prefer skyrim more because the foundation is less specific and more so just the perfect slate to work with. I've as of installed over 240 mods on my current staging folder and I am having a blast. From cleanly chopping enemies limbs off with swords and axes, to playing headcrap baseball with a mace and Warhammer, to visuals that look like the game released in 2022, infamous mods like Apokalypse magic and Ordinator, A complete UI overhaul, it's all in that Modpack and it feels like it's the skyrim I never knew I wanted to play. What makes it even better is that I made that modlist myself and I am incredibly proud of myself with that one because in those 300h I invested into skyrim again, the game never crashed once out of nowhere and only did so when I made a mistake with loadorders or when having to rename files witb certain extentions for them to be able to affect the game.
You could turn Skyrim into a completely different experience in 30 minutes. There’s a reason it still gets 27k players on average haha!
Until Bethesda releases a stupid update which breaks 90% of your mods list and renders the game unplayable. I had the perfect 300+ modlist, mods that haven't been updated in eight years, but Bethesda ruins it all so they can try to sell me some buggy mods that are just knock offs of the originals.
@@j.avance9031 valid concern, however rollbacks exist and you can easily reverse an update as long as you keep an Backup of your modlist and game version the modlist was made for
Hearing the way Todd was hyping up the features of this game while remembering how past Bethesda games completely dropped the ball on their promises told me that Starfield was going to be a severe disappointment... Was severely surprised that it was so much worse than that. I won't be surprised if ES6 just tells players to make up their own story in-game at this point.
Sharted Space
Much love and respect to you brotha. Great video 💜
‘Preciate it!!!
Bro you expressed my own feelings pretty spot on. Try Kenshi btw, just a random reccomendation
Dude I've had Kenshi on my wishlist for literally years so I might pick it up soon. Glad you liked the vid my friend
@@HorseArmoursince he suggested you Kenshi, i would suggest Kenshi space cousin to you, try out X4: foundations, it is a space sim though, but it's way better than Starfield.
Also if you want a medieval version try out Mount and Blade.
One does not just *try* Kenshi! One must be severely mentally damaged, or a masochist, in order to attempt Kenshi!
@@efxnews4776 x4 is AMAZING! I really need to get back into it
@@Zimon_Sombie BAHAH
I agree with every single word of this video
I cannot really tell you how much I agree. There was like a two decent quests that made an impact on the game but that's it. The Mantis questline (side quest) in which you get the Mantis armour and ship, it would make space Raiders recognize the ship and run away, so basically a unique interaction. The other was the Terrormorph questline but all it really does is remove heatleeches from major cities and whatnot, I got some free CC credits so I got the quest Project Mammon which was also decent, but that's basically it.. Everything feels hollow in the game.
I DO remember mantis. I kinda left that out in the video but not on purpose. That was also a quest that stood out, but I think it stood out because it felt kinda "random" like in a classic bethesda way.
@@HorseArmour totally agree, kinda like the Superhuman Gambit quest does in Fallout 3, it's short and sweet but really good and does have some actual impact on the game.
I've seen this coming since oblivion was worse than morrowind. There were regressions between those two titles that shouldn't have happened. Skyrim was good more by luck than anything gameplay related. The world just happened to work right after the (required) mods to get weather effects and increase the difficulty. Even Skyrim failed the modding scene terribly - there's no way to get meaningful crash logs or any debug information about mods or mod conflicts out of the engine. That was borderline inexcusable, but we gave them a pass due to the graphics and writing. Well now the graphics and writing have become the next victims of decay, and only now that the games are reduced to absolutely nothing at all does anyone care. They didn't care when Fallout 4 was released half unfinished, they didn't care when Fallout 76 was a complete disaster (they're still fucking playing it). I hope this game is finally bad enough to get these bandwagon jumping tourists to stop buying this series
Oblivion really was a step back in terms of gameplay, where's my levitation spell dammit?
Man almost dropped the most passionate f-bomb in his debut video.
EDIT: THE FLOODGATES HAVE OPENED AT THE HALFWAY MARK
this thumbnail made me giggle hard bc same bro
hehe
friend, Bethesda is but a husk of what it represented back in 2011.
i lost count of how many times they sold skyrim, on ps3, on ps4, on ps5, nintendo switch, legendary edition, anniversary edition... starfield has no soul because it represents what bethesda is nowdays.
they also tried to pull one like in skyrim but with fallout4 and they did it, im doubting there will be any fallout again, maybe a elder scrolls, but fallout... with all the politics that is that game itself...
See…Bethesdas incompetence is in full display here in this video. Todd grabs a can of spaghetti-o’s and checked off cheese. Damn shame…
I got about twenty hours into Starfield before I started losing the will to live, shortly after that I put godmode on just to get to the end quicker. It's obvious that the talent has left the company, the people they have there now could never make something like Morrowind or Oblivion.
I love that your name is Horse Armor 😂.also yeah I feel yah
Seeing the quality from a smaller channel is inspiring. Thanks bro, good video
Morrowboomer here. Glad to see there are still fans out there with good taste and standards.
Have you given Baldur’s Gate 3 a try? It dropped around the same time as Starfield and was FAR more fun. The latest update has a mod manager baked in, so it’s gonna last at least another decade with unlimited content.
Love the term Morrowboomer by the way. But yeah I’ve played a bit of Baldurs Gate, it’s an awesome game. And I need to check out the new update for sure dude
As a certified Skybaby. I now know how Morrowboomers feel.
Even after Starfield, I still had hope that Elder Scrolls 6 maybe a good game... That was until Todd Howard himself thought the reason why Starfield was disliked was because it's too different from their past games. Now I have no hope at all for Elder Scrolls 6
Hahahahah your channel name being HorseArmour is exceptional 😂
I think that, sadly, it’s similar to the way people have been expecting Star Wars to somehow ever be like the first trilogy again, and it’s just never going to happen. There have been fun bits and some good spinoffs but most of it is soulless.
We just have to learn to move on and find new worlds to fall in love with, and accept that these won’t be Bethesda’s worlds.
Yeah, the equivalent there would be naming your movie review channel: JARJAR. 😄
Emil Pagliarulo saying to "love games, buy them, play them and complain to your heart' s content" is everything what's wrong with game developers. Why would I not wait for reviews from the sources I trust before buying the game? Why should I blindly rush with my wallet and experience a train wreck I could avoid by simply researching if the game is good. Developers like him give a bare minimum and expect gamers to love his games and spend a LOT of money on them only to feel cheated that the studio that created masterpieces like Morrowind could shit out something as soulless like Starfield. Verify games you think you want to buy thoroughly, don't spend your money carelessly, these companies only exist because of OUR money. I think the time has come where people finally see how lazy and uninspired most games from big publishers are. Only us consumers can decide which companies thrive and which wither. Let's hope all recent flops like Concord, Star Wars Outlaws make a change in a media we love so much.
hard same man. shit is heartbreaking because i feel like i lost a old friend. Bethesda knows that they are gonna get box sales because they are living on old glory and the modding community.
Agreed with everything you say.
I loved oblivion, sank hundreds of hours into it over the years. Fallout 4, loved it, liked Skyrim but never quite loved it as much but still hundreds of hours into it.
I played star field for 3 hours and that was more than enough for me. Haven’t played it since and I had been looking forward to it since the first images.
And when the devs say “you can’t say you don’t like our game because you don’t make computer games” that kinda falls flat to me because I did computer games design and development at university and computer science so 🤷 nah it’s not a great game.
Now Cyberpunk 2077, that’s a great game 😂
Great video!
As a huge fallout fan I completely agree we ain’t had a decent game developed by Bethesda since fallout 4 and although I love that game a lot didn’t. Really hope Bethesda fix up soon or thing will only get worse unfortunately 😓
Oblivion is a really special game, for me. I've not found a better description for how I feel about it other than "comfortable."
It's like a warm shower, a hot drink on a winter morning, or that feeling of sitting in a comfy chair with slippers after a day at work. 😂
Every time I boot up Oblivion I can sit there and quite happily play any single part of it with a smile on my face that goes from ear to ear. It's wonderful to me and I'm entirely biased for it.
And nothing Bethesda has done has ever come close again.
I liked their other games, some far more than others and I've played them a lot, as well.
But nothing even came close to what I feel like playing Oblivion.
I actually just got through finally trying Starfield lately and my biggest gripe through ALL of its problems is that I never felt like anything more than an insert that had been crudely pressed into the story.
No one seemed to care in any capacity that I was the leader of X faction, that I'd achieved X objective that had completely helped the galaxy, that I was a walking embodiment of the Blood God and people were still like, "herr you are too rookie for this, rook!"
I know that previous paragraph is an issue that can be levelled - in some capacity or another - at all Bethesda games but I never felt it in complete totality like I did with Starfield.
If that's going to be the level of it going forward, that's going to be what kills Bethesda for me.
The problem with Bethesda isn't bad writers, it's fundamentally misunderstanding the appeal of your games. Bethesda will write "oh, you're the person who finished that quest" in random chatter. Obsidian will write "oh you're the person with this faction reputation who solved the quest in this one of 3 ways" and suddenly that tiny bit of investment in writing 3 arguably inconsequential endings to a quest and having 3 reaction lines makes the place feel like your choices matter. Even if there is no actual branching storylines, or the branches are minor. Getting access to faction safehouses in FNV? Minimal work, but great impact. Bethesda games are always afraid of locking you out of content - Oblivion last did it with some quests having skill bars, but that's about it. It doesn't help that Starfield makes it really hard to consistently see the thing Bethesda is really good at: Environmental storytelling. It's the one redeeming thing about 76, their signature ruined place with 4 notes telling an ironic story doesn't fit into the world, both mechanically and tonally. They wanted to be Elite, but didn't know why people like Elite. They think they're the "these NPCs are not scripted" radiant AI and quests company, but people still play Skyrim looking for handmade content (by Bethesda or modders), not generated busywork. Todd quite clearly thinks you want to play one save forever, not play one game several times with different flavors.
I think Bethesda's management team just does not have the skills to direct such a large studio. They got too big for their britches. Their most loved games came from teams with less than half the size of their current team.
When you start expanding your studio to be the size of modern AAA studios you need very special people at the helm that have a vision for the final product. Starfield feels like every department in the studio worked in a vacuum without knowing at all what the other was doing. None of the game fits together and its clear they all were working on their own. Which then lead to probably a lot of work being scrapped because it conflicted with some other departments work. Then you end up with copy pasted crap, exploration/base building that is almost useless, boring questing, and an armor/defense system that seems almost stapled on.
Its the result of clueless management that could not direct their individual teams towards a shared vision. They had no vision. It was all just groping blindly in the dark until the plopped out Starfield.
I think the Bethesda we loved is dead and gone. If they have any hope of reviving it, they will need a huge management shakeup at Bethesda. I still don't think it will ever return to the heights it was, but it may be able to get back to making decent games.
Bro felt so disappointed in Bethesda that he made a small video essay about it. Thank you for doing what we all want to
I had to 😂
The algorithm is working.
My very first Bethesda game was Oblivion, and the current state of BGS breaks my heart.
At this point, I don't hold ANY hopes for The Elder Scrolls 6. I'm keeping up with the news, but that's pretty much it.
Thank you for making this video, it sums up my thoughts pretty well.
I remember when the generation began, I was really looking forward to playing Everwild, Avowed, Hellblade 2, so many other games that have either come and gone in a whimper, or were cancelled because of console/platform politics, and ES6 was always the Goliath on the horizon, and when it arrived, I’ll have looked back on the greatest console gen ever, hoping to be greeted by the next.
Then reality sank in. Consoles crossed so many lines this gen-none of them being good-that I jumped onto PC again, with the recent sentiment that ES6 might actually be so good it’ll save the industry.
And as I watched this video, I realised it’s been months since I thought anything about ES6. Indies and ‘older’ games are where it’s at, and looking at the state of the people running the AAA market, and their dramas, ties to actual evil, I realise one game can’t make the industry better overnight, especially not one under current-gen Microsofts umbrella. It’s really sad how much that’s released or on the horizon just seems like ugly, buggy, unconsumable mud soup.
Bethesda patched the soul out of Starfield leaving an empty sanitary husk that is only good to put insomniacs to sleep. You should be angry! We all should! A Bethesda fan uses glitches to enhance the experience, and those little quirks are what make ALL Bethesda titles! Bethesda new they had a 20 hour game at best, so they decided on the forced wait and load screens to extend play time. The flaw in that coffee cup is what makes it your favorite, sure the coffee tastes the same out of that shiny new mug but the experience is less satisfying. So is the fate of Starfield!
Wdym patched it out? You’re implying it was good but it’s not it was always a trash game.
@@acev3521 Yes the game was always lack luster. The Soul of Bethesda is not the games, the tiny little flaws and code glitches are what made EVERY other Bethesda title a gem. Those games were FAR from perfect, but the small imperfections are what made the previous titles PLAYABLE beyond a handful of hours. Those flaws are the SOUL of Bethesda games. This all started with FO '76, and they went all in on starfield and the Elder Scrolls 6 does not look like they are going to change back, so Bethesda is DEAD! R.I.P.
@@Highphi420 Cap Skyrim and FO4 still had decent open worlds, and likeable characters you’re defending slop for no reason.
@@acev3521 What about my posts are DEFENDING Starfield?
@@acev3521 Sorry! What about my posts indicate a defense of Starfield?
I am sad given Bethesda's state but glad that people are seeing Bethesda for who they are, nothing will change until they invest big into new staff & revitalise every aspect of the studio
I remember adoring Fallout 3, New Vegas, and Skyrim growing up, and feeling sooo betrayed by Fallout 4...
I had no idea how good I had it I guess.
Yeah… I think I loved the first 50 hours of Fallout 4. I think that’s because it was new. Then the excitement kinda had a drop off effect for me
@@HorseArmour It was like that for me too, yeah... And I dunno why but I can never stomach playing oblivion. Maybe there's a way to patch the game to make it a bit more... easy to play, just like, crashing and resolution and stuff, but I've always felt really closed out of that game despite everyone loving it.
Bethesda holds out two hands: Starfield in one hand, shit in the other.
Everyone: They're the same.
Starfield is the summation of all of the growing anti-synergies that Bethesda has been tacking onto it's games since oblivion. Every new game since has decreased in quality of writing, coherency of skills / perk trees, and engagement.
What I'm about to say pertains only to writing and narrative: in a world after new vegas, we got skyrim, in a world after witcher 2 we got fallout 4, in a world after cyberpunk 2077 and witcher 3 we got starfield, in a world after baldurs gate...
Daily reminder that the person that wrote "you wouldn't understand" and wanted fallout 4 to have a blade runner intrigue, is now most likely writing fallout 5, god help us
“Who created the artifacts?”
“The creators duh”, yeah fuck bethesda
Bethesda is embarrassing
Yeah the game was shockingly bad. Of course it's funny on some level, but I sincerely can't understand how they can stand behind this quality of work and act like it's acceptable.
Love the channel name and love the obscure video shitting on Starfield. I agree as well, I don't think Bethesda will recover from this, Id love to be proven wrong when ES6 comes out but only time will tell.
i fully agree! it feels like one of the biggest issues as well is that the writing is no longer fun; all footage i’ve seen of starfield, it’s like there’s no personalization or attempt at writing funny characters or stories anymore :(
I put hundreds of hours into Morrowind and I cried for the Oblivion trailer. That one Oblivion quest where you have to murder the guys in the house one at a time like a slasher movie❤🔥💝💖
As a fan of Bethesda since Morrowind. I can't possibly agree more. I have been excited for Elder Scrolls 6 since Skyrim, hearing the engine updates they did for Starfield, specifically for Elder Scrolls 6 made me even more excited... then seeing Starfield.. and having Emil and Todd saying that they're happy and proud of how Starfield turned out.. kills me inside.
You hit the nail on the head. Love the channel name btw
Good stuff, I feel the exact same way. It's wild to think that I am not excited for the next Elder Scrolls game.
A Ubisoft or EA could never break my herat like that. I really need to care about something for it to hurt like this. Bethesda meant something to so many of us and then just realising they ain't got it anymore and that they don't care anymore is so damn painful. I will never have those amazing experiences again, because they just can't deliver them anymore.
Today's purchasing game rules are the same as buying PC hardware rules for the last 10 years........ let some other poor soul go first then decide
Thank you for the Oblivion reminder, I have forgotten more than I can recall….it was good wasn’t it. Those sprawling sewer sections…wow. So much of Oblivion was really well made and enthralling….Apart from the cheesy graphics, it is hard to believe it’s almost twenty years old.
“Get a drink for me. Bring it back. Wasn’t that fun?!?” - Bethesda
soooooo fun and riveting gameplay
0:47 in hindsight I'm disappointed that starfield is even a thing. It definitely pushed back ES6 even if they say it didn't.
Also saw your latest video and now this one and just want to say to keep it up man! You make some funny jokes, and your opinion is well thought out. Subbed for sure!
I appreciate it man. And yeah I’ve said to someone else that I think it might be a good thing that Starfield came before TES6. Maybe they learned a few lessons 😂
You spoke many of my words in this video. I also hit the 30-40 hr mark and literally hit quit game, in a random spot in a play session, done with it. It was like Forrest Gump when he was all of a sudden done with running lol. I tried it again after the buggy came out, downloaded some cool free mods, and maybe got another 10 hrs before uninstalling, nowhere close to finishing the main story. I already purchased the DLC with my original purchase, but have no intention of downloading it. Like you, I can tell from watching reviews that it aint for me. Once I saw those stupid looking blue ghost like characters, yeah..nah, I'm good.
Same dude, about 35-40 hours before I uninstalled. First 10 hours were almost unbearable, but it picked up for a few hours when I found the abandoned ship with zero grav, that was genuinely interesting. After that, I spent 15-20 hours hoping to run into something that was just as fun, but it never came. So insanely boring, I regret preordering it and won't bother to check out the DLC I got as a bonus for it
When I first heard your voice I immediately thought you were going to tell me story about how your buddy Keith played a Bethesda game one time but something horrible happened. You sound like Ellis from L4D2 😂 love the video man
😂 Never gotten that but it sounds like a compliment, thanks dude
Emil is the prime example of someone who never grew up in the industy.
A screenshot of the exotic dancers alone was enough to tell me everything I needed to know about Starfield early on.
Bland, made by committee, non-immersive, and made by people who cannot physically handle confrontation or a no- that shit is toxic positivity: the design- because holy shit- I would never walk into ANY establishment that had dancers like these.
No one on Earth, not even those at Bethesda, thought that design was good, they just nodded timidly. Can't be mean, lest you get sent to HR...
House Va Ruun was probably faction I was most interested out of starfields kinda meager offerings, so I was kinda excited to give shatter space a try since I already technically owned it (I had the deluxe edition). I got to the new planet, saw that it was not the trippy psychedelic alien jungle I had envisioned in my head from previous established lore (I mean the embassy is literally overgrown with cool trippy plants) but instead a barren desert world with sparse plants dotted around. One that looks and feels very much like any other planet (DOES NOT FEEL "HAND CRAFTED") and I just.. made it about halfway through the very short campaign, got bored and went to play another game. 😅
It's just a semi-unique looking town with 70% of the NPCs in it begging you to do side quests for them that lead you to very generic non-unique locations.
Bethesda gonna need their own trooper of a Skyrim horse to climb the mountain of reclaiming my interest in anything they ever make