Not Every Bethesda RPG Needs to Be an Achievement, Neither Does TES 6

May 7, 2024

Highlights

High expectations for Bethesda titles like The Elder Scrolls 6 can lead to unrealistic standards for developers to meet.
Starfield’s struggle to please all gamers serves as a cautionary tale for upcoming releases like The Elder Scrolls 6.

Following up on a critically acclaimed title with one of similar or better quality is one of the most difficult tasks in the business. Bethesda is no stranger to this behemoth duty, and the developer has performed admirably with its Fallout and The Elder Scrolls franchises over the years. Predictably, however, cracks have started to appear under the ever-increasing weight of expectations, as evidenced by the reception of Starfield. Perfection can only be attained to a certain degree, and for a change, it would be nice for gamers to temper expectations placed on the developer’s IPs, especially in the case of The Elder Scrolls 6.

The Elder Scrolls‘ elite status can be a double-edged sword, as gamers expect the highest possible quality from Bethesda with all its entries—an impossible task for any developer to live up to. Starfield forms the most recent case studies of a release buckling under this weight, and it calls into question the carefree enjoyment factor that has been so synonymous with the industry. Contrary to the current state of affairs, not every game needs to be a groundbreaking torchbearer with very few imperfections, and The Elder Scrolls 6 could use a reprieve from the pitchforks of lofty expectations.

Skyrim overhauled combat from previous games and improved it in many ways, but The Elder Scrolls 6 could take some lessons from earlier games.

RPGs have a long list of boxes to tick along the road to becoming a renowned success in the face of the highly competitive market environment, and it’s exceedingly difficult to create a perfect blend of all the necessary components. In the past, Bethesda has been known to vault these barriers with ease, especially with games like Skyrim and Fallout 4 reaching previously untread levels of success with that elusive mesh.

Lofty Expectations Held Starfield Back From Reaching Its Potential

However, repeatedly crafting generational games isn’t sustainable, and some newer titles will inevitably be of perceived lower quality than previous ones. Starfield‘s pitfalls were debatably grounded in Bethesda’s inability to satisfy every intergalactic craving of the sci-fi gaming community, for instance. Starfield offered players over 1000 explorable planets in its gameplay, although a large percentage (about 90 percent) had no life on them. Given its premise as a potential flagbearer of the space exploration niche—a generational prodigy—Starfield attracted lots of attention in the months leading up to its release.

Unfortunately, the expectations proved too high for the title to scale sufficiently, despite its appearance as the sole new IP among 2023’s best-selling games. Although it’s difficult to look past Starfield‘s nagging problems, impersonality of its cities, limited romance options, and persistent loading screens in place of real travel, the title did have its areas of strength.

Rather, with the hype surrounding the title, any small area of underperformance was bound to draw waves of criticism.

Starfield’s Reception is a Cautionary Tale for The Elder Scrolls

Gamers anticipated the birth of an industry monument like The Elder Scrolls from the get-go, and the grace of being a “good game” wasn’t extended to Starfield, as many see it as one of Bethesda’s rare misses. A straight hypothetical line can be drawn to a similar problem occurring in The Elder Scrolls 6 whenever it launches, too. Skyrim was outfitted with exceptional detail, from its characters and overarching storyline to its combat mechanics, and the Bethesda title is still lauded as one of the best RPGs of all time.

Building on these achievements is a herculean task that places The Elder Scrolls 6 between a rock and a hard place. It’s difficult to envision the highly anticipated title achieving a more legendary status than Skyrim, given its waves of impact are still being felt in the current gaming landscape, and that’s the minimum bar many may feel it needs to cross to be considered a success. While it would be a dream come true for The Elder Scrolls 6 to surpass Skyrim‘s lofty standards, Starfield arguably buckling under intense pressure should allow the upcoming TES title to be a quality game in its own right without necessarily shattering glass ceilings.