Is System Wars too hard on Bethesda?

Bethesda games are trash. But Bethesda modders are alchemists... They can take Bethesda trash and turn it into gold.

Nope, crap games with crap gameplay need all the trash they receive.

Bethesda games are garbage, very few stand out to be intresting.

I have played a ton of videogames the last twenty years. But I have never played a Bethesda game. I guess that is pretty harsh 😈.

They just looks so washed out, bloated and boring to me.

But I will play Starfield!

Back in the 7th gen when my standards were as low as @bassman's, i thought that their games were great. Now, i would never play their games on consoles, but with a ton mods, i still believe its a fun experience. Its not like there's a bunch of other developers that do it much better.

I thoroughly enjoyed Oblivion, Skyrim, Fallout 3, and 4. Played them all on console as well so had no mods for them. I can see why others might not like them though.

I love most of their games but are people too hard on them? Not really, most of what swarriors do here is show hate towards something game related. So yhea, meh whatever.

Nope. If anything they have rose tinted glasses and especially lems after the whole MS acquisition. Tried twice to get into Bethesda garbage and quit after maybe a couple of hours at most. Absolute garbage.

You're more toxic toward Bathesda than even Santa Monica and their award winning bangers.

I loved Oblivion & Fallout 3 back on the Xbox 360. I remember getting all the achievements for both those titles. I never really gave Skyrim a chance, I think I remembered playing a few hours of the intro and that was that. Same with Fallout 4 but I've been wanting to go back to Fallout 4 on PC and just mod the hell out of it

Thought pretty much everyone here liked Oblivion and Skyrim. I liked them.

Fallout 4 was the game where I realized they don't have any ideas left. After Fallout 76 I pretty much declared them dead. Starfield looks like crap.

The only one I really go into was Skyrim.

Off the shelf initial Bethesda game launches are freaking rough. Nothing else needs to be said as it takes modders or years of patching/rework to make them great.

This does not mean that they aren’t fun, they’re just janky. At least it’s not Gothic/Risen level of jank.

With the size of the fanbase, number of sales, and money put into Bethesda games, they should be better at launch.

Starfield have potention to be great but sadly people here being harsh on it because "beetheesda make only baad gamezz".

Extra hate now they are Xbox studios.

Simple facts

Well, it can be good or it can be bad, not all Bethesda games are bad but it's been a long span of garbage games, and that's why people don't have high expectations, we shall see i guess.

Never had a love/hate with Bethesda in the first place and I always love their Elder Scroll games (not online) and the only Fallout game I adore is New Vegas. Fallout 3 was alright but 4 was a letdown so I stop caring for Fallout games and never followed 76 either.

Bethesda games are alright in my books.

@Ibacai: I happen to like jank. 🙁

But that's by the by. Fevered consolidation suggests traditional AAA is on the away out, forums are dead (as is Gordon Moore), and publicly available, competent AI is looming, well ahead of schedule.

I think we will begin to see the return of sandboxes, but I'm not convinced Bethesda's contemporary locked-down approach will ever be the answer.

As for too harsh? **** knows - I'm just a jaded old fart, stuck in the days where we were sure the product was more important than the discussion. What would I know. I guess at least we're catalysing something.

I've only played Skyrim and hated it.

I played quite a bit of Skyrim: including VR, and regular Skyrim on legendary difficulty which was fun. I also enjoyed Oblivion and Morrowind.

I played 20 minutes of Elder Scrolls Online and hated it, the initial game seemed like piss poor quality.

Bethesda is an awful developer and always have been

I've dunked on em plenty over the years, but I've had some fun with them. Mostly with Morrowind and Oblivion.

I think a lot of the crits are fair.

Games are mechanically trash tier, especially that combat. Gets a bit better with each entry, but still wack.

Many of the systems have been dumbed down with each successive entry. Kinda sucks as that's the stuff that really provided depth in lieu of mechanics.

Obviously bug ridden. Which tbf can be funny and has a weird charm of its own, but can also be more severe. My first Oblivion run was ended with a game breaking bug, over 50 hrs lost.

Outside of the games themselves, the gaming landscape has changed. Big impressive open worlds used to be the domain of GTA and TES. Was a bit easier to excuse their various glaring flaws as they provided something impressive and unique in exchange. Nowadays, open worlds are dime a dozen. Not to say Bethesda (and R* for that matter) games don't have their own flavor and quirks.

All that said, the games can still be fun in their ways. And of course mods are a pretty big deal. The games aren't my thing, but I get why others enjoy them. Start the game, wander in a random direction, see what kind of weird shit you get into.

Oddly had the itch to play Oblivion a few weeks back lol.

Only thing that comes to mind is people wailing over Redfall and Starfield not coming to PlayStation.

Over last decade they've had more hits with me than misses. Maybe the only stand out as the subject of ridicule would be Fallout 76.

Nope, the only thing they did right was let Obsidian develop Fallout: New Vegas :v

They make pretty good RPGs that people get sucked into.

Fallout 76 was the only real bad game they made. That one pissed off a lot of people lol

People hate on em for sure. But they hold their place in gaming. I think starfield will be great. Make The Outerworlds look like shit tier title.

Yep!

Can never get into Bathesda games. The only one i manage to finish was Skyrim and i forced myself to finish it. Tried fallout 4 and Dishonored 2 and just traded them in after few hours

Personally I love them as I'm a sucker for exploring huge immersive worlds and discovering all the small details and world-building. Oblivion and Fallout 3 are among my favorite games for this reason.

At the same time, I can understand why people might dislike them. In terms of gameplay, they leave a lot to be desired. Combat is clunky and dumbed down, and the writing is mediocre at best (though some side-quests are pretty good).

Not sure what, but there's something about it. The atmosphere was nice. The graphics was charming, it had a pretty sweet soundtrack from what I remember. The menus looked cool. I get Oblivion urges too sometimes.. :P

@Litchie:

Yeah the music, atmosphere, scenery, definitely a vibe. Game has charm and soul.

As much as I found the overabundance of bloom to be annoying in a lot of gen 7 games, actually like how it works with Oblivions art. Softens and highlights things in a good way imo.

Was gonna wait and see how the Skyblivion mod shakes out, but might just hop into regular old Oblivion with a few mods.

@uninspiredcup: Yes, the cow are having meltdowns over Starfield. Lems are moist.

sw is nonsense.

Did their games have bugs? Sure but i had fun with them.

Some hate nowadays is because ps wont be getting starfield. LoL

Reason for the poll results.

Poo cows. lol :P

@SecretPolice said:

Reason for the poll results.

Poo cows. lol :P

"STOP LIKING WHAT I DON'T LIKE!!!" - Cows

As long as they don't close down modders like Skyblivion they are alright in my book.

Shit companies (Take Two, Nintendo) love shutting down modders, Bethesda actually embraces them.

@kvallyx said:

@SecretPolice said:

Reason for the poll results.

Poo cows. lol :P

"STOP LIKING WHAT'S NOT ON BS JIVE!!!" - Cows

Fixed. lol :P

Damn, keep forgetting there's a new layer of fanboy shit to navigate with their games lol.

Not a fan of historically multiplat devs/series being pulled from a system. But at least it's funny watching people draw new lines and flip flop on old opinions.

Well, yes. But it's also one of the last refuges of long form discussion. It isn't moderated too heavy-handedly and isn't popular enough to be swamped with shills. Plus there's enough space too think for yourself without getting swept along by the crowd. What to do. 🤷‍♂️

Nope. Todd's been handled with kid gloves and has gotten away with things that would have gotten most games 6/10's. Poor storytelling, poor gameplay, broken mechanics, bug fests that need to be fixed by modders to meet their potential. This "nobody hated on them until MS bought them" narrative is revisionist history.

@uninspiredcup: System Wars wasn't hard on Bethesda until MS bought them.

There is a "video game social media" world outside of these forums. And out there, Sony fannies are losing their sh*t on a daily basis over Starfield and now Redfall (because of the "we were originally working on a PS5 version" quote). I mean, there are fanboy YouTube sites claiming Starfield is actually "timed exclusive", and Sony fannies are using that as fact, and flooding twitter with comments like "I can't wait to play Starfield on my PS5!!!". Even though Microsoft has been very clear that it is not.

The hate for Bethesda here is sour grapes. They had one mess of a game - Fallout 76,

lol

My relationship with Bethesda went through multiple phases.

1. The love phase: This started with Morrowind and Oblivion. At the time, no one else made open-world games as big and detailed except for Rockstar but Rockstar games weren't fantasy games or RPGs. Bethesda games were the premier fantasy simulators where you could legitimately roleplay as a mage, warrior, thief, etc, and all that stuff you dreamed about while reading/watching LOTR or playing D&D campaigns. They were western fantasy brought to life.

2. The hate phase: This happened a few years after Skyrim. I started loathing their games for how janky and poorly written they were. The NPC interactions made me cringe. I regained interest for character action games like Ninja Gaiden and heavily got involved in reading and writing. Started taking creative writing classes, going to book clubs, etc. I could excuse the questionable mechanics but not the trash-tier writing and lore. Additionally, open-world games were becoming much more common and the ubiquity of Assassin's Creed and its clones, the likes of Sleeping Dogs, inFAMOUS, etc made me detest Bethesda games even more.

3. The balanced phase: This is the current one. Over the past 20 years, I've come to appreciate Bethesda games for what they bring to the table. They have their shortcomings and a myriad of issues, but to this day, no fantasy RPG is as detailed and engrossing as their game worlds. They're not just some quickly done and shoddily put together products. As @ConanTheStoner said, they have a soul and they're evidently a labor of love but Bethesda often tries to bite more than they can chew. The music, soundscape, environments, and worlds they create are second to none, and although the RPG elements have been watered down over the past few releases, the combat, attention to detail, and complexity have generally improved. As far as "gameplay" goes which to me matters above all else, they're shit but as far as experiences go, I still think they're top-tier.

So yeah, I've been in every camp.

Too hard and not hard enough at the same time.

Oblivious, FO3, Skyrim and FO4 are so bad they make even Elden Ring look palatable. They have a good idea, which is the sort of fantasy world simulator. But unfortunately Bethesda have a habit of biting off more than they can chew, and not committing enough to any of their concepts. As a result you get a game that tries to do a lot of things, but does everything really poorly. The games tend to emphasise negative freedoms, allowing you to create a character who can be good at everything, which comes at the expense of interesting roleplaying situations. The games also tend to lack any real emergence. Due to undercooked game mechanics. I think Bethesda would do a lot right if they got a GTA sized budget for their next game, or if they scaled things down. Fewer features, means they have to get fewer stuff done right.

On the bright side,

But the games that don't come out of Todd Howard tend to be a good time. Be they Hi-Fi Rush, Doom Eternal or Deathloop. Unlike many other dev studios, they are also have a very strong and positive attitude towards modders. As far as game lore goes, TES has one of the most detailed and interesting worldbuilding in gaming. With Elder Scrolls Online in particular making really good use of the lore.

I like stuff they've published - Evil Within, Doom, Dishonored, Hifi Rush, even Rage 2.

As a developer ....I've tried Skyrim and a bit of their Fallout games ... couldn't really get into em.

Ultimately they're scum like most gaming companies.

@ConanTheStoner: First thing I do is install a mod to stop getting automatically attacked by wolves and shit every 2 minutes.

When you're just trying to get from one end of the map to the other, this shit randomly kicking in are you trot past a fucking mudcrab.

Bethesda's weird. They both suck horribly, and don't suck at the same time.

The entire internet is addicted to them.

Skyrim was a casual console game, heavily stripped back in size etc, crappy guild quests and so on. Oblivion and Morrowind were ok, and that is Bethesda. Shit games generally, too bad.

The only good Fallouts were Fallout 1, 2 and New Vegas. Guess which ones weren't developed by the Bethesda Game Studio chumps? Exactly, the good ones. The first thing people do when they get Skyrim is mod it, which means they're not even interested in the game...only access to the engine.

So no, Bethesda sucks donkey dick.

The hate Skyrim gets in forums like these is really shows how out of touch some gamers are. These places are true echo chambers.

i reckon if you're a forum dweller still active on gs chances are you're old enough to fondly remember the likes of morrowind and oblivion, and maybe later skyrim, f3 (more divisive) and new vegas. that was back when bethesda were one of only a few companies making those kinds of engrossing and ethereal (elder scrolls) open world experiences, before the industry's mass stampede to jump on the open world bandwagon, riding it til the wheels fell off and open world became a dirty word, synonymous with cookie cutter quantity over quality.

but even though age hasn't been all that kind, if you got to experience them at the time of release, chances are you had a good time with at least some of those titles. if you played them on pc and piled on the mods like i did, chances are you had an amazing time, certainly with at least one or two.

last gen was when their wheels fell off. as a publisher, all good, one of the best. as a game studio, utterly shameful output from them last gen. there's a huge weight of responsibility on starfield to restore some faith, and some dignity tbh. fortunately they're not a lost cause like ubisoft