I was weirdly forgiving of Fallout 76 (never played it, I’m not too hot for multiplayer games) because it was made so soon after fallout 4. It always felt like one of those DLC that got so large that it got released as a standalone game, which practically any large game studio has done and Bethesda did with Arcane’s Dishonored 2 and Death of the Outsider.
A huge soft spot I have for the elder scrolls comes from the heroic fantasy exploration with enormous orchestral music and adventure in every direction, something people say about Starfield is that it’s large and sparse, which is accurate for a grounded space game but goes against what makes half of Bethesda games fun. Fallout falls in the middle of the pack being far more pulpy than Starfield and in 4, I feel this was a large issue with it feeling bland; it’s pulpy wackiness was toned down when it should have gone up.
I don’t expect Bethesda to give me the video game equivalent of game of thrones but I do expect the Saturday morning cartoon that I’m equally fond of, and they still hold all the ingredients to make that recipe. Unfortunately Starfield was always tonally wrong for that, but ES6 is perfect for it.
Don’t get me wrong, I’ll still only buy ES6 a year or so after release, maybe 2-3 if it’s really crap, but I think a fair few of the ways that they’ve deviated from the working formula post Skyrim may not be an issue here.
Oh no, I hate this art and design style:(