My Problem with Bethesda
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 30 มิ.ย. 2024
- Bethesda worlds always represented the ultimate sandbox to me, bearing one of the loosest game designs founded on putting as much interpretation as possible into the player's hands. Growing up with these games, that became a staple for me, something I wanted to see in every title from that point on.
Unfortunately, they've shunted that aspect entirely. Removing the sandbox, releasing shells of 'games' and trying to employ tactics that are very much unlike Bethesda.
It's pretty stupid, but the thing that really ruined Starfield for me was the skill tree. Now it didn't matter how you played, because the game TELLS you how to play. Screw that, this is supposed to be an OPEN world.
Among other things I was greatly disappointed by a LEAP backwards in NPC path-finding/AI, Melee options were completely disregarded, the narrative was hollow at best, and the ratio of animals and plants per planet was hilarious. What was the idea behind generating a bunch of pointless planets? Did they think we were stupid enough to willingly waste our time?
Gun design/gunplay was a huge step up from FO4 though, nice work whoever worked on that.
~ CHAPTERS ~
00:00 - Introduction
00:48 - My First Experience
03:49 - The Point
06:48 - A Journey I'll Never Forget
09:40 - The Hole in my Heart
14:12 - Filled with Memories
15:43 - Contempt, Loathing and Regret
17:07 - Thank You
~ MUSIC USED (in order) ~
Distant Horizons - • TES V Skyrim Soundtrac...
I Don't Want to Set the World on Fire (Instrumental) - • I Don't Want to Set th...
Harvest Dawn - • Harvest Dawn
Peaceful Waters - • TES III: Morrowind OST...
Into Darkness - • TES V Skyrim Soundtrac...
Caught Off Guard - • TES V Skyrim Soundtrac...
Beneath the Ice - • TES V Skyrim Soundtrac...
Peace of Akatosh - • Peace Of Akatosh ~ The...
Vision - • Arena (HQ Remake) - 35...
Dearly Beloved (KH2 version) - • Kingdom Hearts 2 - Dea...
Ocarina of Time Title Theme - • Title Theme - The Lege...
~ CLIP SOURCES (by section) ~
Whole goddamn thing:
Beauty of Skyrim - • The Beauty of Skyrim |...
First 39 Minutes of Starfield - • Starfield: The First 3...
Kingdom Hearts 2 Opening 8K - • Kingdom Hearts 2 openi...
Introduction:
Starfield Official Gameplay Trailer - • Starfield Official Gam...
Fallout 3:
Oblivion Skeleton Ragdoll - • Oblivion - Skeleton Ra...
16 years later and Oblivion Stealth is still really fun - • 16 years later and Obl...
The Point:
Fallout 76 Official Trailer - • Video
16 times the detail Fallout76 - • 16 times the detail Fa...
The Art of Skyrim - • The Art of Skyrim
Starfield: Official Gameplay Reveal - • Starfield: Official Ga...
Starfield Direct Gameplay Deepdive - • Starfield Direct - Gam...
Skyrim:
Rudy ENB LE Dwemer Ruins Ambience II - • Rudy ENB LE - Dwemer R...
Skyrim Loading Screen - • Skyrim loading screen
Skyrim Blackreach Full HD - • Skyrim Blackreach Full HD
The Hole in my Heart:
E3 Gameplay Demo - • Elder Scrolls V: Skyri...
Metal Gear Solid 3 : HD Collection Cutscenes 720p Part 1 - • Metal Gear Solid 3 : H...
Todd Howard "Who's Laughing Now?" - • Todd Howard "Who's lau...
Scenery of Morrowind: Tel Aruhn (Timelapse) - • Scenery Of Morrowind: ...
Filled with Memories, Contempt, Loathing and Regret:
Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer Sing Along with Lyrics - • Rudolph the Red Nosed ...
goku goes super saiyan for the first time - • goku goes super saiyan...
PlayStation 2 Startup + KINGDOM HEARTS II Title Screen - • PlayStation 2 Startup ...
Dominique Wilkins' Top 10 Dunks of his Career! - • Dominique Wilkins' Top...
Garden of Words Anime Food - • Garden of Words Anime ...
Spongebob Sweater - • SpongeBob Makes Squidw...
Spongebob Conch - • The Magic Conch in 5 M...
It's not a Boulder it's a Rock - • Video
Loser Spongebob - • LOSER - SpongeBob Squa...
Gunna Writing - • Gunna Writing In Fire ...
Toshiba Paper World - • Toshiba - Paper World
Elder Scrolls V Behind the Music - • Elder Scrolls V Skyrim...
Behind the Scenes - The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim [Making of] - • Behind the Scenes - Th... - เกม
What's your most cherished Bethesda memory?
Hello Ice, Good to see another amazing vid! Fallout 3 was my Bethesda game and I think Skyrim is peek Bethesda. Fallout 4 just felt going downhill. Starfield confirmed to me that Bethesda has lost his way, or maybe still reliving old glory rather than do a fresh start, a new vision is needed. Will future updates or the modders change Starfield? I don't know but I'm tired roaming in Starfield like endless empty boxes.
@@samwizgamgie3rd828 Modders actually seem pretty discouraged after Skyrim's recent update which removed the baked-in mod menu in favor of expanding the "Creation Club" and calling it "Creations" (so console players have to pay for mods now). That's sort of what helped spark the whole frenzy of Starfield hate recently.
APPARENTLY, Phil Spencer says Starfield will receive '12 years' of support from Bethesda, but I call bullshit. Skyrim in the same time rarely got any stability updates after the release of the Dragonborn DLC...
Honestly, I'd like to see them tackle dungeon crawling again in a more contained setting like Daggerfall but it seems unlikely they'll ever minimize the world map in favor of more hand-crafted fixtures ever again.
@@iamiceTVI think Bethesda is replicating the Fallout 76 formula into their single player games. Bethesda creating 10 years support games with lots of microtransaction via creation club. It being in Game Pass, they can keep supporting it and the money will flow. As I get older, I prefer shorter games, Im gonna have to let Bethesda go.
Going through the Ghost-fence of red mountain in Morrowind for the first time, it made my teenage balls shrivel...now it makes them open wide to feel the peppering sands of the glorious blightwinds 👍
The moment I left Vault 101, and the world opened up.I still play it with mods today.It's about 45GB in size.When I start it again and leave Vault 101 it's like when I come home.This feeling is after fallout 4 completely gone.I am finish with this company.
My most favorite Bethesda moment was the moment modders do not even try to make mods for Starfield.
Why should they? Bethesda sold us a template with the intention of letting modders build their game. IMO they tried to pull a sneaky Fortnite/roblox move by making their game more “sandbox”
The biggest red flag, the game isn't even good enough for the biggest fans to put time in. F4 wasn't great by a long shot but people are still modding it.
There's a little over 6000 mods for Starfield at Nexus Mods...js
The vast majority are fixes for basic game mechanics like UI and menus - which is really sad. Modders are already saying making the big in-depth mods like there are for skyrim or fallout 4 just isn't worth it because starfield is too boring, empty, and poorly written - there's just not enough there to build on for mods long term @@milkbone69
@@milkbone69 and most of them are basic fixes and textures from frustrated players trying to cope with a broken game. That's not going to sustain a game long term. One notable modder has already tabbed out of Starfield, which doesn't bode well for other modders actually producing "real" mods that are essentially free DLC with their quality. What's this game gonna look like in 5 years without all the massive quest mods, the gameplay overhauls, the beautification projects, etc. that continues to sustain Skyrim to this day? Starfield is already at 10k concurrent Steam players barely a few months from release, a milestone that took Skyrim a decade to reach lol. Starfield has already crashed and burned. It never even left the hangar.
The thing that resonated with me in skyrim is to see the mountains covered with mist. It reminded me when i was a child going to visit my grandparents in northern Malaysia. The memory of watching these tall mountains range called the "Banjaran Titiwangsa" struck me when i visited the reach in skyrim
Literally first picture I see of them are clouds rolling right over the peak. That's beautiful, one of the biggest sights that's stuck out to me are these white cliffs at Pag, Croatia. They reflect damn near perfectly off the water, and it's like an incredible illusion of a pure white shimmering surface just rolling endlessly. Haven't really seen anything like it in a game yet, maybe one day.
thanks for sharing :)
Dude, small world, my grandma's house is in a village somewhere along the foothills of Banjaran Titiwangsa too. I spent my school holidays when I was a kid there and I know exactly what you mean.
@@iamiceTV yeah, i saw it in Google image. It's a very beautiful place. Please preserve it so future generations could enjoy such beauty.
After Skyrim is where it all went off the rails, they stopped trying to make a world to explore and started trying to make a designed player experience where the mechanics and world space are designed for players to play things out in a specific way in the way of Fallout 4 and in Starfield, they dedicated the game to being a platform future content from mods and DLC.
To me, it's the lose of agency. I love feeling like my own player, something Witcher does is making decisions matter, Dark Souls leaves the combat up to your wit, and FO:NV lets you control a whole world from the barrel of your rifle.
What really set me off was when I first stole an item in Cydonia and it's AUTOMATICALLY scripted that you get caught by a cop regardless of if you're seen or not. Funneled me into a quest, and sequence I just didn't want to be a part of yet, because they couldn't trust their own game to catch me fairly. Cheap shit
@@iamiceTV On that last paragraph, I think that stuff started way earlier to be fair. Skyrim all but forces you to join most of the guilds. I loved Skyrim but the one thing that always irked me the most about that game is how much, in a giant open world, it felt the need to railroad you into meeting and dealing with all of the 'important people'. The hand-holding is so aggressive that it's basically impossible to not have a quest to join every major faction in the game. Morrowind had so many little quest lines that you could just completely miss out on if you weren't paying attention or took the wrong turn somewhere, it never tried to force you in a specific direction other than to say "hey, if you want to progress the main storyline, go talk to this person". I don't remember feeling like that in Oblivion either but I definitely did in Skyrim and it's only gotten worse since.
You could even make the argument that making some NPCs unkillable in Oblivion was at least done for similar reasons. They don't trust the player to find enjoyment with what's there anymore, they need to curate their own content to you or they think it won't hold up.
@@iamiceTVman I thought I was the only one feeling like this. Bethesda constantly says “change up your play style by picking different starting perks” or “play a different style or make different decisions” none of this matters because it doesn’t matter how you paint your car or what engine you put in it you’re only allowed to drive down the same one way road from point A to point B. It’s the illusion of choice in starfield or illusion of depth to be more accurate.
Bro said after skyrim at skyrim, skyrim was the start of the degradation, am so surprised that very few people saw it
@@Ichthyodactyl I assume that most fans of Elder Scrolls had either Oblivion or Skyrim as their introduction, and aren't aware of just how much degradation was already present in those games. Daggerfall was my first encounter with the series and I went back to try Arena, then later on got to play Morrowind, and from my perspective Oblivion was the first sign that Bethesda was going in a very different and less interesting direction. Not long after there was Fallout 3, and I was a huge fan of the original game and even back then preferred CRPGs as either isometric turn-based style or first-person (like Wizardry), so to me that game was an egregious affront that was misguided at best.
Bethesda under Todd has adopted the idea that the player should never be barred access to any content, and he is evidently adamant in his position that a player should never have to feel like they need to start over with a new character due to a poor build or quest choices. This compounded with the loss of nearly every major artist and writer who in collaboration shared incredible creative visions leaves the studio devoid of talent in that most crucial area. I have no way of knowing, but it seems to me as an outsider that there is some delusional thinking going on at that studio, where the reason for the prolonged relevance of their games is in part attributed to this design philosophy, when in reality it is entirely due to the mod community.
Bethesda never seemed to appreciate the genius writing they had treating it as an unnecessary expense or of limited significance; most of the books in-game originated in Daggerfall and were written by beta test players (who also leant their names to the Daedra). The majority of the vision for the unique identity Morrowind had was that of Michael Kirkbride (and overwhelmingly so), of Kurt Kuhlmann, Ken Rolston, Mark Nelson, and Douglas Goodall the only one of whom still is somewhat involved with Bethesda being Kuhlmann. Ted Peterson and Julian Lefay, the true originators of the entiere series, left over creative differences during Morrowind development. The loss of a unique identity is not limited to their own series, it extends to everything they make, Fallout and Starfield included. Their single saving grace, the maintaining of modding as a key component of their games (which even this has been degraded with multiple paid mods attempts and the Creation Club) combined with the talent of their environmental artists, enabled them to find success with a formulaic approach that is losing relevance.
This is hands down the best Starfield review I’ve ever seen. You’ve perfectly captured the essence of the game, or rather, the lack thereof. Fantastic work.
That’s all the starfield reviews…
@@willisverynice Most i've seen had a different vibe to the video. This one relates to our nostalgia more than others, imo.
Starfield is to kids today like Oblivion was to kids in 2006. I was a little late to the TES/Bethesda party myself, and find both Oblivion and Fallout 3 mostly just goofy, clunky and not much fun to play.
Starfield was made for true Bethesda fans only.
@@BungieStudios Ouch...
My dad played oblivion. When I saw an interest in it he built me a computer and bought the game for me and even downloaded mods for me. I will always remember how excited I was seeing the bright pink PC underneath the tree on Christmas. Oblivion will always have a place in my heart as it was the first game I ever played on the pc. It very much has aged but it’s still a great game in my eyes
Awesome dad!
That is the sweetest fucking thing
Cool name
I bet ur pop's was excited to see you open it. Great testimony, Thanks.
Your description of Oblivion hits hard, literally my childhood.... Though dads hands at 3:07 give a real 'waking nightmare' vibe!
Considering putting out your opinion on current day Bethesda in a video eso? Your opinion, and other huge elder scrolls creators is important if we want change for the better.
Wow didn’t expect to see you here Danny!
My first Bethesda game too, still my favorite game of all time. Sad truth is Bethesda peaked with Skyrim now going downhill ever since.
There is only one good bethesda game :morrowind
@@patmeester1217 Now I like Morrowind very much, but how is it the only good game?
What makes Daggerfall, Oblivion and Skyrim bad games?
"The dwemer ruins, that stood the test of time"
A big part of why i loved skyrim was there was so much past history being eaten by the dirt and seemingly forgotten, centuries or eons? who knew how much time had passed since.
The ambience, the mystery, it drove me to wander for countless hours.
Brilliant: Your take about society going away from experiencing to consuming was very powerful
I picked up Morrowind without knowing what I was buying because I liked the cover. It was new at the time. It blew me completely away. Cliffracers aside, that game, even as dated as it is, is a masterpiece of storytelling, environment and alien world exploration. I had never played anything like it. Starfield broke my heart a bit. It also made me not care anymore if they ever release ES6. I will be too old and arthritic to play it anyway.
Imagine what could have been. What a sad time. The complete lack of even basic world building, exploration, rewarding discovery and fleshed out level design like the dwemer ruins or vaults hit so hard with Starfield. I played and played hoping I'd find something like past BGS games and it never came.
Well, can I just say, it's bit hard for a brand new IP with the very first game in it's series to compete with a series that started in the 90's and has had 5 mainline games, 14 expansion DLCs and 9 spin-offs. The problem isn't that Starfield is a bad game, the problem is that people have way too unrealistic expectations. Just like with Cyberpunk 2077, people were actually expecting it was going to top The Witcher 3, without ever considering that The Witcher 3 was the culmination of a trilogy of games that started 8 years earlier. The problem is that you were expecting the equivalent of Skyrim, but the only thing that was realistically ever in the cards was the equivalent of Arena.
And for another example, Baldur's Gate 3 is awesome. But notice the "3" in it's name, and also that the setting has had literal decades of lore written about it before BG3 dropped.
@@user-oo8oj1hl8k Stop making excuses for them. People don't have "unrealistic expectations". People have expectations set by the marketing. Arena was a more complete game than Starfield is. So your BS about the first game in an IP being rocky doesn't fly with me.
As for Cyberpunk, yeah it was overhyped. But even on release it had good characters and a sound story. Two things Starfield doesn't have, and no amount of patching or DLC can change that. Starfield is an empty game made as a skeleton for modders to finish, nothing more.
Oh and yes, BG3 is a sequel. But it was developed hand in hand with community feedback and PASSION. The characters in BG3 feel like actual people instead of the stale mannequins of Fallout 4 or Starfield. You can FEEL their motivations, and understand their personalities. The characters in BG3 are more multilayered than most actual people and I truly fucking mean that. BGS has the passion of a dead wombat and don't even use design documents in their development process. Bethesda's game design is outdated, and people making excuses for them is why it has remained so.
When someone oversells a product, you don't blame the consumer. You blame the fucking company that oversold it. CDPR took their lumps and made a better game, BGS keeps telling everyone they're wrong. Stop defending them.
@@Seoul_Soldier Clearly you're talking out of emotion and not logic. Instead of being objective you're just ranting angrily.
Out of any bethesda game so far, Starfield has by far the best-written quests and the most humanlike companions. They've improved a lot. If you disagree, then you're just talking out of your ass, either because you've never played any bethesda games before, or because you didn't actually play Starfield past the intro.
Skyrim for example is the most beloved Bethesda game of all time, yet all companions in it are basically walking backpacks who have like 10 lines of total dialogue, of which you hear only 3 at a regular basis, and 99% of all the quests are fetch-quests where you don't even talk to an NPC.
Starfield on the other hand has plenty of good questlines with good writing, like the UC Vanguard questline, the Ryujin Industries questline, the Freestar rangers and Crimson fleet questlines.
For a bethesda game, it's generally about what I expected based on my experience playing Morrowind, Oblivion, Fallout 3, Skyrim and Fallout 4. The main issue I have with Starfield is that it's not very innovative, and the core group of NPCs who you meet in the main questline is very small. Some things are improved, other aspects are kind of stagnant.
Is starfield the best game of 2023? Hell no. Is it overall the best Bethesda game? No, it isn't. But saying that it's low-effort and watered-down is just disingenuous, emotional bullshit.
6 minutes in and you've earned my respect. Oblivion truly hit a cord with me.
Fanny in my experience content was 7 for 8, 7.5 to oblivion and 6 to V
my favorite Bethesda game is New Vegas and they didn't even make that LMAO. but seriously, I was obsessed with Skyrim as a kid cause it felt like such a finely crafted world with beautiful music that legitimately made me cry at one point. shame how far we've fallen. even fallout 4 is a shadow of what could have been
No way!!!
I also always picture entering a Dwemer ruin as the culmination of exploration in Skyrim.
I miss that sense of adventure…
I was young too… guess I also miss being young and naively happy.
Nostalgia is a bitch eh
Yup entering a small cave and stumbling across a giant expanse like Blackreach (iirc) and just having a whole other world to explore underneath Tamriel. It’s stuck with me so much I try to make a castle in a cave in most of my Minecraft playthroughs 😂
I hate underground and cave stuff and even I loved it.
Recently I've seen/read/heard somewhere of an interview where Todd Howard said something along the lines of "For every new game I try and see what can be rationalized and streamlined". And even though I rarely watch interviews, that seems to be exactly the mans mentality. "Accessibility" at the cost of the games being devoid of any character and feel now. He never was the often memed "Godd Howard", he just knows how to sweet-talk his way through everything, but people caught up to that. Immediately when he spoke so enthusiastically about 1000 procedurally generated planets, my interest in Starfield was gone. And SPOILERS SPOILERS (for anyone who even cares anymore) now we have fecking Skyrim in space. Starborn? 'Shout'-ish abilities? Feck off, give us a new experience, the recycling of "what worked" is picking up pace and I - a long time fanboy, to this day still enchanted by Morrowind, which shaped my love for the entire fantasy genre - have lost all hope and excitement for the next instalment of the Elder Scrolls franchise.
What? Are you not excited for being disrespected by almost all NPCs even though you are a living god, Magical Redguards, vast underground ruins built by ancient Redguards, being bossed around by obnoxious NPCs, technological leaps like scanned 3D assets, Los Angeles political points of view shoved in your face, the same bugs from 20+ years ago and the stellar writing of Emil, skills so boring a mod is required to make the game palatable?
Your loss.
Game of the century, hands down 👌
Blowing up Megaton because at the time I thought "There's no way they'll let me wipe an entire settlement off the face of the Earth." The intense guilt and shame I felt upon visiting the ruins and finding a ghoulified Moira.
😂 that shit was wild
The best thing about this video was mentioning mass effect. I instantly teleported back to _Leaving Earth_ . The scene and the music still gives me goosebumps and feels me with rage and a need for vengeance against those that invaded my home.
Oblivion will always have a place in my heart. It was my first Bethesda game, and I played it sometime in 2007 right after me and my brother finished building our first ever PC. I stayed till 3 am that night.
Bro this video is an experience. The way you use your words has such a quality, it drags you into a world where you make us experience your own reality without sounding presumptuous or pretentious. Pure experience.
Subscribed.
Also, agree 100%.
Great video. I'm in my 40s. I've been playing Bethesda games for over half of my life. My first Elder Scrolls game was Morrowind and my first Fallout game was 3. This video is all about feelings. How games make the player love them with a amazing game world. I feel like something is missing from Starfield. It's a good looking game that worked better at launch than the other Bethesda games that I have played but it is missing something. If "Bethesda magic" is a real thing, Starfield is completely missing it. The game world in Starfield is boring and repetitive. There is nothing to explore or discover.
I think that's why people enjoyed the world in Elden Ring so much, not knowing what was around every corner, that sense of wonder. Bethesda lost that touch a long time ago.
Well said. Think I gave up and uninstalled around the 16 hr mark. Game did not hit like Skyrim or Fallout. Was simply bored. Think their biggest mistake was not being able to fly around the planet, exploring it from the sky. That one change would have recaptured some of the same experience had with exploring the world's in their other games
You played it, there's nothing more except the zero g gun fights and the space dog fights, they could be much better still.
Yep… hit the nail on the head… haven’t had a real heart felt experience in a long time. Elden ring was impressive though
It's impressive, I guess but it has no character and no personality beyond the typical souls style. There's nothing more to it than what was already established in the previous games, besides the open world. Skyrim is still capable of providing any gamer with a journey that's one of a kind, sure, Elden Ring provides that too, but it's unlikely any casual would have as much fun with it.
@@Super_BrolyElden ring was too big, the sheer amount of bosses made it a bad experience as someone who likes to 100% soulslikes. Some of the bosses I know you have to get through them to progress but most of them you could completely skip and never see them again. I love getting stuck on a boss knowing I have to beat it to progress, it makes that last attack so satisfying. I can completely get why it’s goty for so many people though but It was just so boring. I was so fucking pumped when I saw lies of p on game pass because I knew I wouldn’t get a from software souls like for a long time and lies of p filled the Elden ring gap completely
@@lily4813dsI agree has the same type of issue starfield has to much content leading to lackluster content in some cases. Bloodbourne and sekrio were fat better games as far as boss flights go.
Because elden ring was made by a company that’s not simply trying to farm money
@@John-996 Shit I'd have to say at least Elden ring hit the mark on being soulslike, Starfield missed the shot for even a shitty bethesda game IMO
I gotta say bro, I'm glad the algorithm recommended a quality video essay for once. I enjoyed your insights and writing style, your use of metaphors along with personal anecdotes really resonated with me. At the end of the day consuming for the sake of it is just another symptom of the overall apathy society feels. We're not growing and stagnant and I feel like you illustrated that pretty well with your critiques of Starfield at large. Cheers brother, you've gained another sub and keep on making quality content. I hope it continues to be a good, healthy outlet for you!
My sister sent me a screenshot of this. You made my mom happy, thank you :)
@@iamiceTV No problem bother! Have a merry Christmas/Happy Holidays man 😃
Oblivion was my introduction to a Bethesda game. It was wonderful. Like many anecdotes from nearly everyone who has played Oblivion, the first time I walked out of the dungeon and saw the world in front of me my jaw dropped. It was also 2007 (PS3). I didn't enjoy Fallout 3 but that was a taste situation; just not my cup of tea (although I loved the V.A.T.S. system). I was on board for Skyrim and played it quite a bit but even at launch it has many systems that were antiquated. Especially in 2011. The second I played The Witcher 3 and saw the first in-engine cutscene, heard the voice acting, and got into my first combat encounter I never touched Skyrim again. This is the 'Chess vs. Checkers' observation writ large. The fact that Bethesda has made 3 more games since Skyrim (Fallout 4, Fallout 76, and Starfield) and hasn't changed a single design choice is flabbergasting. CD Projek Red, Rockstar, Suckerpunch, From Software, Insomniac, Guerrilla and many more have lapped Bethesda. They simply refuse to innovate; instead opting to only iterate.
i remember getting Daggerfall when i was a kid, bought it for my own money i worked hard for... it was an adventure, every little nook and cranny, every shop, every dungeon was something amazing, like seeing another world through the lens of one of the beings in it... every little treasure could be just another item in another game, finding the right shirt for my adventurer, in the right color and make... felt real and magical... those are the experiences i remember... and starfield has none of it, i love the nasapunk theme but it is just that, a theme in starfield, feels flat and stale after a couple of minutes, i love the exploration and getting resources... but in starfield it is just another busywork for you, no soul or even need to go do it as the npx's drop better gear... i love the spaceships but in starfield... you never use them for anything, there is no travelling, just cut-scenes between planets, you never need to do anything on your ship either, there are no panels to pull out and fix the components, just a button to fix everything... and the list goes on and on.
i did try looking for that magic that skyrim had, i spent 167 hours in search of it... it had to be a quest i didn't do, it had to be a place i didn't visit, there had to be a soul out there somewhere in that vast space... there wasn't
Your not wrong about the scene of the reveal of liurnia being inspired by a painting, it was most likely inspired by the painting wander above the sea of fog due to there similarities
That is frickin bad ass dude, I just looked it up WHAT! Thank you for sharing lol
Oblivion is still my personal favorite Bethesda game, but I remember being blown away the first time I spotted salmon swimming upstream in Skyrim. It’s those little things that sell the world.
I remember watching an interview with some of Skyrim's developers about how, during its development, the cart ride intro to Skyrim was glitched by BEES flying around the environment, colliding with the cart and sending it off course. You can tell they really cared about development and had passion that they seem to lack now.
I'll never forget that first time I booted up Ocarina of Time on my N64. That hauntingly beautiful melody that played as footage of Link riding across the plains on a horse kept looping on my screen. And in between that looping footage were snippets of action sequences that gave away nothing yet stirred up my appetite to know more. I didn't even know if I was ready for this adventure. All I knew was that whatever trouble I was about to step into when I pressed start, it was going to be something big. I miss that about not just Bethesda games, but games in general. Games that silently prompted me to brace myself before I jumped in.
GAME INTROS USED TO BE SO COOL!!
I'm actually workshopping a script on Main Menu themes, and that's definitely a factor in what I want to talk about. One that really stuck out to me recently was the intro to 2009 Demons Souls. If you haven't watched that, man it's incredible, the music, the choreo, the design, wow
Excellent video! Morrowind has always been close to my heart since it released. I know it’s not as popular as Skyrim, but I’ve always felt it just had more of everything overall.
You just so eloquently put to words EXACTLY how I feel about Bethesda right now. Man, I remember that feeling a long time ago when I first played Fallout 3. It was an apocalyptic hellscape with little hope and desolation everywhere. Yet at the same time, in that wasteland, I saw beauty. There was a sense of awe and, that feeling of wonder, excitement and fear welling up inside me when I bore witness to that overlook. Sure it's quaint now and it looks pretty dated now, but man. You can't deny how awesome that first exposure felt.
I never really had to time to finish my idea for Skyrim, but I had planned on makin like a Nature guide for Alchemy/Herbalism that would be a love letter to the level of detail they had at play. It woulda gone over where you would find the reagents and what environmental queues to look for if you wanted to find the ingredients. If you want Fly Amanita you go to where a guard would take a piss, for instance. And how all the reagents you find in a zone tell you a story about the zone itself. The area around Whiterun has stuff that is antimagic and good for early leveling (health pots, etc), Riften has Thief and Merchant ingredients, Falkreath and Morthal are loaded with Poison (one being a former massive battlefield and the other a swamp). The interplay of how a lot of the reagents you find can be used with others that are either in the nearby area or the fauna that feeds off them.
You could tell some love and thought went into it and its such a small part that plenty of people won't deeply engage with.
I never noticed that.
Definitely flesh that idea out, and present it. That's a great concept!
Oblivion was my intro into Bethesda games. My wife was pregnant with our first daughter and I was 26 years old truck driver. Bethesda was my favorite gaming company then. When I came out of that sewer from under the imperial city and seen that open world it blew my mind lol. Sad to see what they've become today.
At least not everything is bad, more games'll always come out with new memories to make. Wishing you and your family the best, happy holidays man :)
I enjoyed this. You speak what the actual people who buy Bethesda games think and feel. This is what we want, not what Bethesda is pandering to.
I just want a single player rpg with combat that feels as good as Vermintide.
Bought vermintide in june of last year and haven't booted it up, is it that good?
Vindicator class in Guild Wars 2 PvE/WvW is pretty fun. It's like Fable: TLC if it were much more complex and had 11 years of content.
Ill never forget when i first played fallout 3. I think i was 7 or 8. I stepped out of the vault amazed. And then i went to the mart, saw bodies everywhere, and got scared and quit. I thought fallout was a horror game until i ended up actually playing it again
Wow. I listened to this video on my drive home from working 16 hours straight. I came back to sub and there’s NO SHOT you only have 1k subs! You need hundreds of thousands brother and I’m here for the journey.
Thank you for sparing me that time. Hope my journey serves you well :)
Oblivion is the best Bethesda game of the last twenty years
I haven't truly played it yet actually... I really want to, hopefully Bethesda throws up a sale soon
a weird way to say morowind
As Much As Morrowind Is A Masterpiece, My Zoomer Brain Can't Get Pass Hit Chance In Real Time I Honestly Hate It@@xax2952
@@xax2952 He did say 20 years, so I'll cut him some slack. Since Morrowind came out over 20 years ago.
Morrowwind was much better. Oblivion is a dumb down Version of Oblivion. Still a greate game but my favorite is still Morrowwind
Bruh, omg yes. Those subway ghouls are terrifying. I remember having the same experience with Oblivion though (my first Bethesda game) I remember being at my friends house and his older brother was playing Oblivion for the first time. They were in the dark dungeons (the tutorial) and were fighting giant rats and zombies with his bare hands (easiest shit ever lmao) but the darkness and loud cries of pain from both his character and enemies made me terrified. Bethesda has always been great at building atmosphere, if not much else. Skyrim had terrible gameplay design, was riddled with bugs and a nonsense story that disrespected the lore, but I am still able to swallow my complaints and admit I love Skyrim. But then Fallout 4 stepped even further down. Then with 76 Todd himself spit in our faces. And now Starfield is a billion dollar insult. Todd's 20 year in the making dream game. And this is what he produces.
25 years.
Top notch on the video, congrats on the 1000 subscribers congrats on the partnership. Now you're probably more motivated to make more videos 😃
I've played elderscrolls games 3/5'th of my life and fallout starting with 2, I've enjoyed these kind of games for so long and while the games I fell in love arn't the same they still bring joy and then starfield...something that lacked all of that. It hurt playing starfield because exploration was the main reason to play other games and that was gone.
I absolutely loved how you described going to Blackreach for the first time. It's rich in lore and I love the story the ruins tell.
But I loathe going there ruins. I avoid quests that bring me in there. It's the amount of Dwarven Spheres. I don't like how they get big like then they will chase you MAD far lol.
This is also the only game I have no interest in beating. The main storyline is actually incredibly boring to me. I just have fun creating my own little story and running around in caves.
Hey man, stumbled across this video, and just wanted to say you did a great job and to keep up the hard work. I agree with everything you said in the video, and I loved the editing, music, and how you talked about everything. Definitely earned a subscriber, can’t wait to see what else you put out!
I wouldn't want to do any less. Thank you for the support, looking forward to seeing you around :)
Its really saddening, this was the only studio I cared about, Beth made the games I dreamed of, I even fried our G-card with playing oblivion for 20 hours a day lol, sure the engine is a jank and their writing wasn't great, but man, their worlds where so immersive, and yes it was an experience, playing Oblivion as a werewolf living in a huge castle taking care of my citizens, or playing Skyrim as a museum owner who travels the land with his dark blue Khajit making jokes with Lydia ... and eventually holding her funeral in Whiterun when she perished, thousands of hours of memories. I went to see her grave in the crypts whenever I passed Whiterun, didn't feel right not too. But at least we met again in Sovengarde (god I love mods)
I wrongfully thought they would gain skill, learn and improve. Everyone does right ? right ?? ...
They just .... don't ... everything has gone so far downhill it's astonishing how bad they have gotten.
I think it's a fear they have of feeling like they're not 'repeating' and always working towards something new. But that hunt doesn't happen in changing game mechanics, it only stifles the core.
Truly the most enriching 'series' of games I've played recently has been Dark Souls. Still haven't gotten to 1, working my way backwards because I'm insane, but 3 and 2 are SO vastly different and in ways that compliment each other as unique experiences in their own right.
Where I think DS3 shows a mastery of gameplay, DS2 does such a great job encouraging exploration, and agency. Honestly DS2 has really felt like a weird spin-off of Skyrim more than anything.
I wish looked at their past successes, kept them and just built on top of them instead of thinking 'how can we make this even simpler?' I LOVE LEARNING, I'm not stupid! And I feel like they think I'm stupid through the damn gameplay.
I don’t think I’ve ever watched a TH-cam video that was this powerful, well done.
This video came right from the heart, its authentic and full encapsulates your emotions. Just like the kind of games Bethesda gave us once upon a time. Great video, great message.
Hit a bit hard... Fallout 3 was a seminal moment for many of my gamer friends. We all had these wildly different experiences and stories. It was a community experience through a single player game and it was wonderful! Developers just need to get some soul back in their lives. Greed is effing us all in the ayy...
The answer to why is Tod Howard.
He’s the guy who decided games need to have fewer systems and what systems there are must be streamlined to barebones. From stripping down the number and type of attributes characters have to everything else.
For some reason he was praised for it at the time, somehow people either didn’t realize or were afraid to say that removing “unnecessary detail” is really taking the soul and charm out of a game.
I really hope he leaves as soon as possible and gets replaced by somebody who wants to be immersed in the game world, not just provided the bare minimum for the game systems off a checklist.
Marketing is paramount in today's world sadly, a pretty large stake of most video game budgets are dedicated to that sole facet. Todd unfortunately has undeniable charisma, a massive public image, and is a great speaker. He won't get changed out unless Bethesda starts losing Microsoft plenty o' money :/
But I agree, though with MS in the mix, now the issue falls onto those stakeholders whose impact directly sways even Todd Howard.
I was essentially kicked out of my home at 14. I stayed at a friends house who had a 360. I played fallout 3 and NV habitually to cope with my situation. I wouldn’t leave the house for days. I play it now with my son in my lap in my own house with a much different appreciation for Bethesda games.
That's awesome. I'm happy you and your family are in good health. Hope they come to appreciate them games just as much as you, or at least find their own along the way :)
getsumtrout6993, I'm sorry to hear you went through that. I hope you're doing well now.
Please, please do some videos on Ocarina of Time, Majora's Mask, and Skyward Sword. Your voice is probably one of the most calming voices I have ever heard in my life. I loved how you implemented the music from different games, you're gonna go far dude. I guarantee it.
I've never played any Zelda games, so you'll have to bare with me as I parse through a huge catalogue of stuff I need to play! But I'm definitely looking into it, my friend told me to start with Twilight Princess! Expect something sometime
@@iamiceTV I should warn you, Twilight Princess is arguably the peak of the classic Zelda format. Everything before and after that one just doesn't hit the same.
@@alaeriia01 I'd assumed it was OOT/Majora's... so you suggest saving Twilight Princess for later? What's a good jumping off point then?
@@iamiceTV Depends on your tolerance for 2D games. If you're okay with a top-down adventure, I would start with A Link to the Past, then play OoT, MM, Wind Waker, and finish with Twilight Princess. Avoid Skyward Sword; it isn't very good.
If you don't think you can tolerate ALttP, skip that one and start with OoT.
glad i got this video in my algorithm and really happy to see you were able to more than double your subs in a day :) congrats on getting monetized!
Bro, thank you. I've probably sent like 30 screenshots to my friends and family lol
Have you tried the Gothic series I recommended a while ago? A pallet cleanser would be nice for you! :)
I haven't! I bought the whole trilogy but have yet to crack it open... recently started Morrowind so I think the mood is coming to me, but I'm working on wrapping up RDR2 soon then a video'll probably follow.
I'll look to kick it off soon, do you recommend the need for any stability mods or the like? Just curious since it was a pain in the ass getting even Fallout 3 to work so I could record stuff on it lol
I am 62 years old and I still play Oblivion, Skyrim, Fallout. You are right. The newer games lack the SOUL. I can listen to Oblivion soundtrack and it takes me back and makes me want to fire up the game again. Bethesda delivered the package to be opened at the player's leisure, not force fed as it is now. I think the question that needs to be asked at Bethesda is: WHY do you make the games? For money? Profit? Love of the game? For the fans or for yourselves? Does the game suck you in, or just suck?
This video brings up a great question. When did I stop experiencing and start consuming? I felt this way for so long but couldn't put it in words
It's when gaming becomes an addiction, and not a pastime. That's pretty much with anything tho. Even TV can be magical, but we fall into loops of watching comfort shows over and over again, then treat TV like its shallow.
I had this on in the background and it made me stop what I was doing to restart the video to watch it. Your sub count is criminally low for the quality of content you put out
This is the perfect way to discuss problems with a game. Critical but respectful and artistic lol.
Great video man I love the points you made and the lasting idea of experience. I have had the same problem with games and movies, but that has been quelled for now since of Dune and Baldurs Gate 😅, keep of the good work 👊🏻
How you are not monetized is a travesty. You have a gift, sir.
Liked and subscribed with bells on.
I am now!
This video tripled the pictured subscriber count of 840 which rocketed me past the 1000 subscriber requirement. As well, I showed the earnings you and many others have contributed to in my most recent Sekiro video :)
Hope you enjoy the ride, I've got plenty of stories still left to share and thank you for giving me a chance.
@@iamiceTV Then I wish you quite a full and fulfilling youtube career! Show us what you got!
Instant sub man, the way you explain your experience feels like a conversation I'd have with my friends
Real life, love my dawgs they let me yap all the time. One of my friend's is the reason I even started making videos
@@iamiceTV you gave me motivation to start myself, you're the goat and you ain't even know it yet
Hey Ice... you are awesome! Your script, narration and the accompanying soundtrack are all excellent. Very well done and heart felt. Really... you earned a subscriber and of course a like. I look forward to seeing more content from you. Bravo!
This is fantastic!! Subscribed for sure!!!
My first experience with Bethesda was pouring over the Game Informer covering Skyrim because my parents wouldn't allow me to play Rated M games. Then, when I was 16, I was bought an Xbox One S, and was allowed to rent 3 games from the Redbox. I don't remember the other 2, Fallout 4 was everything I ever needed. I was so scared in the Museum at the beginning, and I've been a Bethesda fan ever since. Skyrim, then New Vegas, then Oblivion and Morrowind followed shortly after, it's been an uphill battle since.
Amazing video. I have a feeling that one day you might blow up if you keep making videos to this level of quality. With that in mind, heed your own (as well as that commenter's) advice. Keep making experiences, never just make "content".
As long as I'm sheltered, with food on my table, I'm happy to continue being me. I can only hope desperation never seeps into my work.
It seems to happen to many game studios, the geniouses leave and start their own studios after creating masterpeices. Left are the ones who can create something but not connect everything toghter.
That Zelda tune was the cherry on top man, subbed
I've been watching maybe every single video made about Bethesda from the last couple of months because it gives me life in a way that only pure schadenfreude can provide, and one of the upside is finding a bunch of talented creators with not so many followers.
I'm subscribing.
Nothing hits quite like Skyrim on a cold winter night, fireplace crackling and Ancient Stones playing while you explore the mountains of Skyrim
Secunda on a nice raining Spring night with the window open is also quite nice
Your writing hits well above your subscriber count weight class. If you keep making videos like this, your channel will be very, very successful. Keep going bro! You've got a new subscriber :)
I will. Thank you.
Weird. I’m a bit older than you but I too had a friend whose basement was amazing. His bedroom was down there, he had a huge 60 inch CRT and surround sound, his computer, a movie theater room, a water bed, and a pool table all in his bedroom, a fridge chock full of soda, and his mom was a hell of a cook, her stuffed peppers beats all. Have a good day man. Btw I agree with you on Bethesda.
Oblivion was my first Bethesda experience around the age of 18-19 and I have such strong emotions and memories about that game. Whenever I hear the music I just want to be in that world again. It was truly magical. Like playing Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time as a kid kinda magical. And then Fallout 3 hits a few years after which just kicked so much ass. Man, what great experiences they were.
What sounstrack is it at 15:26?
It's Dearly Beloved, the Kingdom Hearts 2 version.
Btw, my description will ALWAYS have all the music sourced *in order*!
Thank you ;)
I played table top adventure games when I was in high school (before they existed in PC's) and have played PC based computer games since they first came out in the 80's yet despite our age differences, I find that I agree with you 100%. This is an excellent video. Count me as new subscriber.
Experience is timeless, you can interpret my words however it makes sense to you, while it still retains the same meaning to me. I think that's the beauty of writing.
Having played Skyrim for 6,683 hours; Fallout 4 for 2,922 hours; and then Starfield for 144 hours. I understand what you're saying. Bethesda lost something along their path. I miss the Bethesda of old. The Bethesda who could create those incredible journeys for us to explore to the point of becoming lost in them - often to the point of forgetting our real world problems. I have tried. But I cannot become lost in Starfield. It's back to Tamriel for me. Thanks for the well presented video. You've gained another subscriber.
Small channel with passion in their videos. Yup I'm commenting for the algorithm gods
This video really resonated with me. When you were talking about experience vs. consumption, that is something I have been really thinking about lately. When I play a game or watch a movie, sure it's escapism and entertainment. But when I do those things, I look to find meaning in it and make memories. Nowadays a lot of media disappoints me. So its in a way inspired me to want to make my own stories rather than be disappointed. To anyone reading this, be inspired to make something awesome. Anyway I'm rambling. If you read this I hope you can relate. Very well done video.
Chase that dream, man. If it ever becomes a video or something, happily share it with me. I'll check it out :)
Really well written vid mate..I.enjoyed the watch..I really felt morrowind was one of the best..as everyone I spoke to had a different experience with it..that started to change come oblivion..it kinda became follow the marker after that..but good job on it..
Bro, I first played a BGS game when I also was 11 (or 12, maybe) and that was Oblivion! I picked it up with some money I got from my mom in an electronics store. I found out about Oblivion from TH-cam, since none of my friends or family heard about it. Couple years later when I got better hardware I bought Skyrim. But my first RPG was Gothic 2, which is also great. Thanks for the great video!
There's a quote floating around of Todd Howard saying it took them "7 years before Starfield clicked into being fun". What that tells me is that unlike their previous games where they had a fun concept they were passionate about and built a game around, that instead here they started with a game/franchise concept and tried to find/build fun into it, with questionable success.
Starfield feels overly mechanical and repetitive like they captured the essence of Preston Garvey. Where is the organic exploration, the environmental storytelling, or the unique quest lines? Oh wait, we replaced it with procedural generation, repeatable fetch quests, and even more fast travel.
Since this was more about positive memories: Morrowind. It's one of my all-time favorite games and I play it through at least once a year. Open Morrowind with mods keeps it feeling fresh and it still has a healthy modding community. Skyrim is also fantastic and I love playing it in VR.
Nothing in Bethesda was really my childhood, because I was already 24 when I first played Morrowind in 2003. I'd like to say that I started back in the beginning with Arena or Daggerfall, but I didn't. But I do respect those titles for what they did for gaming. But yeah, Bethesda has derailed so hard in the last decade or so, and have stagnated to the point where all their games feel stuck in the past.
This was a great video. I agree with your points and conclusions but it was your presentation and writing that really pulled me in. I can tell a lot of care went into making this and it's great to see it being so well received.
Pacing around my room practicing helps a lot hahah
This video is amazing! Very well written, you have a passion, can't wait to see more of your work.
“I’m poor…and not monetized” 😂
Bro you will be bigger than mychannel. Thought you were a big youtuber. Your content is 🔥
Thank you for the confidence dawg lol, I'll try my ass off to get there fasho
A video perfectly encapsulating the feeling lost with recent Bathesda games.
Glad to have found your channel.
Something people really take for granted about Skyrim is how clever they where in the landscape design. If you don't use fast travel the road system and pathways are sooooooooooo immsersive and cleverly designed to hide the low draw distance and much lower quality LOD from further away. They couldn't make most things look good from a great distance, so they worked harder to turn that into an advantage because it forced them to create a world that made you feel small and had lots of obstacles and barriers to obscure those LOD shortcomings.
Just turn on survival mode and play for a few hours and you'll notice how absolutely fantastic using the road system really is. Going from Markarth to Riften on horseback or foot is a long trek but it's a gorgeous one that makes you forget it's a game from 2011.
Nowadays game developers can just make huge draw distances and fantastic LOD from pretty much any distance, and it feels like this truly gorgeous handcrafted and intentional style of world design is going to be lost forever.
Dark Souls 3 does such a great job with this. From a certain early Bonfire you can actually observe the whole world, but once you're in the levels you've got SO many little grottos, alleyways, caves/sewers with little hidden treats that chunk up your view and potentially lead to these little breaths of air that give you a new view, or present the next location.
I've always been more of a proponent for linearity in video games because I think that curated feeling your describing is what makes cities, villages, towns, this, that and the other so charming in real life.
I had a similar initial reaction to FO3. I'd never played a FO game before and the initial playthrough of FO3 was just too much; I had a much more positive view of the game after trying it again over a year later but that first playthrough will be something I'll never forget.
This is why I keep playing Skyrim. My friend tells me its boring but whenever I want to explain why I've played it every year for 12 years I can't really put it into words, beyond "I just like exploring". It can't be exploration because I know Skyrim better than my own town. Like you said, it's the experience. And maybe its a sense of nostalgia for when I was 12, playing Skyrim day 1 and being absolutely enthralled to the point that I played ONLY Skyrim for several years. I don't truly know. But the experience of Skyrim, of Cyrodiil and of Vaardenfell, all the way back to Daggerfall, and the passion the worlds have behind them, that's probably why I keep coming back.
Instantly subbed. This was such a good video, an experience if you will lol
The highest praise, thank you. Hopefully each video's a step up from here :)
Wonderful video, and also the music choice was on top the whole time!
I always spend a lot of time picking out my music, glad you enjoyed it :)
When I was 11-12 I would draw oblivion art all over my notebooks and make classes and imagine how to become an alchemist one day these are precious times
Thank you for that distinction between consuming and experiencing. I was talking with a friend last week about Skyrim’s paid mods, and he used the term “consume.” “Experience” is far better.
14:45 Are you playing the Arena music when Ria Silmane talks to you?
YOU KNOW IT!
The problem with Bethesda is stale studio leadership. People who’ve been there so long, they have no new ideas and the ideas they do have are recycled. What it needs is a top level clear out (looking at you, Emil), and fresh blood.
You've ascended from content creation to straight up art bro. You have excellent writing skills. Keep up the great work
Art is crazy, thank you dawg that means a lot :)
A lot of older gamers had the same complaints about oblivion and later skyrim. Each iteration deviated farther from the creative foundation of the company.
Man this video is great, i might even give a final try to skyrim maybe this time i'll manage to immerse myself. Subbed obviously.
Pretty sure this video will blow up soon.
I’ve never played another Bethesda game besides oblivion when I was a kid where I could easily stay up late till 3 am tired but unable to stop playing. I just had to explore one more ayleid ruin or see where the next quest in a quest line took me.
First time viewer of your videos with this one and just wanted to say it's always a delight to see someone putting their precious time into creating thoughtful video essays about games. Stuck home post-surgery, I'll be binge watching your entire channel this week. That said, it's difficult to look back at Bethesda's more imaginative works and then look back at their output from the last decade and not become overwhelmed with abject cynicism regarding the state of the company. They haven't just lost their way, but they've been lost for a while and may never find their way back.
Hope recovery's going well big dawg! and enjoy the videos :)
Its an unfortunate product of any creative, that moment when ideas just become stale, or it's shit out rather than fleshed out. There's definitely still a place to enjoy their new-er games, but really only as a last resort or a modder's playground. I can say with confidence, Bethesda made some great 'skeletons' of games.
this is the second channel in two days i've come across with very little subs and very high quality writing and video quality. great video man, hope the algorithm favours you for the growth you deserve.
Plug the other! I'd love to check 'em out
@@iamiceTV 'Alex Adrift'! less than 1k subs and funnily enough, i also found their channel from a bethesda rant of their own.. :P both earned a sub from me. www.youtube.com/@AlexAdrift
I was 16-17, went to the US for a year as an exchange student, this was 2015. I've never played any Bethesda or big title game before, but I've known Skyrim from the memes.
Bought my first ever laptop, for studying and gaming. My host family didn't have internet so I have to go to my friend's house and downloaded it. I put so many hours to the game, playing alone after midnight for weeks, months.
That same year or the year after GTA V came out. Preordered it and had a blast as well. One of the best year, best time of my life.
Now, THAT, was a genuine, passionate video on personal feelings (shared by many) about a once-amazing dev who most of us wish would rekindle the flame & return to creating games from the heart. Definite sub, you earned it.
"How did they lose their way?"
After Skyrim they massively expanded their team. Part of what made their games up until fallout 4 feel so hand crafted and passionate was likely the intimacy of the team. The level of communication across all levels was probably near perfection.
After becoming so big it is basically impossible to keep those levels of cohesion. There's interviews where Todd basically admitted this directly.
On top of that the new talent probably isn't even that talented. Likely a bunch of corporate diversity hires instead of true passionate developers focused on making a masterpiece
Cohesion is definitely paramount in any production. Sounds likely, and I'd even wager that's a big reason Ubisoft games have plummeted in an identical regard. Although, I think they did a smart thing with Origins by attempting something 'new' with that installment. But, again that team saw turnover and change coming into the next game and little by little the RPG AC's lost their personality.