r/BethesdaGameStudios • u/thegreatestpitt • 8h ago
I have the most conflictive relationship with Bethesda games and would like opinions.
TL:DR How do long-time Bethesda fans continue investing hundreds of hours into these games without feeling like they are wasting time on technically mid-tier releases? Please read below for more context. Thanks either way :)
Basically, I love their IPs. I play on console and recently played starfield for a while and I was like “this is so dope” but then, as always with these damn games, a bug here and a bug there appeared, and the more I played it the more I was like “I’m not gonna lie, if the setting and aesthetic wasn’t so fucking goated to me, it would be completely unacceptable to play a game where there are these many loading screens and where one of the main cities is as small as it is (compare new Atlantis to cities like novigrad or night city. New Atlantis becomes a joke, and while I can understand there are more than one main city, I still think the actual size is way too tiny for the city the game is trying to portray, which automatically takes me out of the immersion, personally).
And then I started exploring space and came across all these pre-made POIs that just get random rolled to see which you get to explore for the 5th time on a different planet and… the more I played the more I was like “do I really want to spend all these hours, potentially hundreds of hours, on a game that feels half baked just cause it has some cool narrative quests while other quests are just fetch quests and some mechanics are kind of half assed?”
And idk man, I guess I was like “nah, I mean, there are some seriously incredible games out there that are of much higher quality, created by studios that care about the user experience of players far more than Bethesda does. I mean, what’s the point of having a million trillion physics based items you can pick up and drop anywhere when the rest of your game runs like ass because of it and your outdated, unoptimized piece of shit engine?
Like, the level of quality is quite high in other games and Bethesda games never reach that level. Skyrim has quest breaking bugs such as the civil war quest which is basically a huge part of the backdrop of Skyrim. Fallout 4 has some quests that are in the same position. Starfield had a radiant quest about a ghost transmission that I could never complete because it bugged out.
And beyond that, a lot of the areas you can go explore in any of these games feel unimpactful because you go there and at best you get a powerful version of a generic weapon, not even a proper legendary weapon or something with a unique design. You know which game does dungeon rewards better that a lot of other games? Elden Ring. Countless weapons and items that legitimately help you on your adventure. Weapons and items that are distinctive and cool and even play differently from others. Yet Bethesda always goes like “here’s a steel sword with slightly better stats, but nothing you couldn’t have made yourself or even looted off a random dead enemy of no renown.”
So in the end, I do like Bethesda games when they work. When they give me cool quests to follow through, or when I actually get an actually cool dungeon to explore with rich environmental storytelling or even a hidden quality quest I would’ve missed had I not gone there to begin with, but in most all other instances I do wonder… why am I wasting my time on a game that is subpar compared to most other games coming out by studios of the same caliber, and often times even much smaller studios? I mean, the blood of dawn walker just came out and people are raving about it and rebel wolves (the studio) is basically an indie studio that managed to churn out a basically AAA title of quite a high quality, and don’t get me started with Claire obscure expedition 33.
My point is, narrative rich games are not exclusive to Bethesda, and some studios even have better written quests (and dialogues) than Bethesda, so I’m like “why waste my time with their games”, but in the end, I’d be lying if I didn’t every once in a while crave their games. To stroll around Boston in fallout 4, or explore the main cities in starfield (cause the empty planets are shit to explore), or walk around Skyrim… right now, I think the novelty of starfield is what has me in this situation, because part of me wants to keep playing, but I feel bad about wasting my time on a game that I know will frustrate me sooner or later, like all Bethesda games and their technical shortcomings do eventually.
And while I know mods are there, the fact that now you must pay for some of them, which also happen to be the ones with better quality, makes me angry, because while I can understand that the hard work of modders should be compensated, in the end I’m basically having to pay a premium just to get a game that is more up to par with other games and the industry standard of quality that is expected of games this size (AAA games), which I find quite unfair.
So all this to say… people out there who love Bethesda games and play them a lot and stuff, how do you manage to play these games without feeling like you’re losing your time on a mid game when you could be wasting it on a much higher quality game created by a studio that deserves the recognition and support more than Bethesda?
