Falling out.

 Eh?... meh...

Bethesda Games Studios. A name of well deserved glory in the space of the Games Industry for the way that they lionized and ultimately defined the modern Western RPG. There was a time when a Bethesda game release meant the entire industry would stand by and pay attention to whatever it was the studio put out because they made money. They secured influence. They birthed trends. In fact, I'll go so far as to blame Bethesda, alongside Bioware, for setting clear the example of 'RPG lite' that went on to colour just about every game franchise throughout the 2010's and is still messing up some modern games. Ubisoft have never made a decent RPG system in their lives but they're married to the grind because they're so brain-broken the team think that's literally the only way to make gameplay progression anymore. (It certainly is the most obvious way I guess.)

But something has happened to Bethesda, or perhaps around Bethesda, to rob them of their position at the top of the pile; and it's beginning to feel less like a fluke and more like the modern face of the company forever more. To be sure, I'm not saying they've lost all their momentum and can't make a dime anymore, the success of Starfield is proof enough of that- but their games aren't really the air-stealers that they used to be. I could see another studio feasibly going up to bat against a Bethesda release and perhaps not winning, but actually siphoning sales off of the big boys themselves. I don't think they're the industry influences that they used to be and it's kind of sad to see the state of Modern Bethesda knowing how dominant they used to be. It's like watching your favourite talented actor fall off into making low-effort Marvel projects for the last 10 years, losing all that sparkling promise as they go.

I think it was something I started to... perhaps not notice in the fullest sense of comprehension and reaction, but sense in that subliminal and off-putting way, back with Fallout 4. And I loved Fallout 4. For the time. The gameplay, the graphics, the companions, the story- I thought this game to be the great leap forward that Bethesda were waiting for- and then I tried to play it again. Replaying Fallout games, it's what I always end up doing. But this time felt... weird. Wrong. I didn't feel that tug of infinite role playing potential, I just felt like I was stepping back into the same journey I went on originally. And there is a plethora of mechanical and design reasons why that was the case, but I just want to stay with the feelings themselves because they were sobering. Remember that Bethesda were the kings of RPGs in my day. Their offices housed the birthing pots of our fantastical dreams. But I couldn't dream about Fallout 4 after playing it. All I experienced I did in my first playthrough, there was nothing left the next go around.

Fallout 76 was an obvious mis-step by the studio and to this day I don't hold that as indicative of some great fall for the Bethesda brand. It was a wild strike out in a new direction that they weren't as prepared for as they thought- no shame in that. Trying and failing is how we learn our limits, and though this was an expensive mistake to publish it did not colour who Bethesda would become. I think that might be better drawn from the recent release of Starfield, which is very much in Bethesda wheelhouse. And very much the same sort of situation as Fallout 4. Now I think I might prefer the gameplay loop of Starfield, whereas the world of Fallout 4 (which much relies on the many games of set-up before it) stands out as more interesting than the barren straits of the Settled Systems. But neither match that regular sense of absolute freedom I enjoy every time I return to Skyrim. So what happened to the magic of 2011? Why can't Bethesda capture me like they once did?

Perhaps one of the the unspoken truths of gaming, one that I try to hide from the surface, is the possibility that we're all just getting a little too old to be captured by the magic of Bethesda. I mean we fans of Fallout 3, Oblivion and Skyrim- we all feel like subsequent games have failed to grow up with us. Hell, even Daggerfall lovers are forever bemoaning the less of overall complexity present in each subsequent Bethesda game. Maybe those devs just limit themselves forever to the young man's game, Todd Howard's strict rules about what a Bethesda game is or isn't has started to catch up now we've got other developers willing and capable of making just as grand RPG games better fitted to our tastes. Maybe we're not meant to be playing Bethesda titles past, I don't know, twenty five?

Although we might take ourselves back to Todd Howard's rules and instead deduce that maybe the big man himself has misread the audience he serves. That head-throbbing mandate that "Everyone must be capable of enjoying every piece of content in the game" reduces all possibility of meaningful choice and consequence. Replayibility is sacrificed for unending games that just go on and on and on. As Bethesda pidgeon holes itself towards that specific audience they're blotting out the sensibilities of every fan they made along the way. You'll never play a Bethesda game better than your last one, because they keep forgetting how to keep the audiences they gain. I don't particularly like this explanation, but it's a popular one. And heck, I ran into a Sarah Morgan cosplayer, I know there's an audience for Starfield too.

Or maybe, just maybe, the generalised RPG that Bethesda specialises in just has nothing more to say. No more grand thresholds to cross, no more examples to set upon the standards of basic game design. Maybe Bethesda have stretched as far as they can with the genre type that they're married to and the only way to become the head of the pack once again would be to specialise. And I have to be honest, I think if Starfield were a CRPG, or a squad-based RTS or anything over than yet another basic action RPG- all the similarities the franchise had to Fallout would have forgotten and forgiven. But then, would we have wanted to play it? It's like a Catch 22 situation- too different and people would have rejected it, but the game ended up so similar to what we knew that people ran out of imagination for it within a few weeks.

So yes, I'm falling out with Bethesda- and I don't really know what the company can do to fix it. I once believed them to be my single favourite developer- and for a time they certainly earnt that title. But I don't even know if I recognise the Bethesda of today. Not because of some great downturn, but rather because the world seems to have moved on past them, and I never thought I'd be saying that when looking at an industry that once seemed to trail in their footsteps. I still think that Starfield is a good game, by the way. It just lacks the staying power and cultural impact I expect of a company as big and wield-ly as Bethesda's. I guess we'll see if the big B can change that with their support for Starfield over the next, ten years did they say? Yikes... I'm not sure I can hold out hope for all of that...