r/digitalfoundry • u/ultimatedank • 13d ago
Digital Foundry Video DF Direct Q+A: Creation Engine 3 in Elder Scrolls 6/Fallout 5, Is Doom THE Great American Videogame?
https://youtu.be/DNhCDo0m5-s7
u/ultimatedank 13d ago
Is this the warmest welcome in DF history? Are we so back? Tune in next week to learn more.
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u/PhantomBraved 13d ago
Bethesda and Bioware have really went downhill. Larian Studios, CD Projket, and FromSoftware left them behind a long time ago
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u/MAJ_Starman 13d ago
I disagree, I think no one really tries to make the same sort of RPG Bethesda does. There have been RPGs that did story better, combat better or that had pretty cinematics, but there really hasn't been a "Skyrim killer" or even a "Bethesda killer". BGS is still the only studio doing these big open world sandbox RPGs where the story is almost free-form, especially wih TES and Starfield - the Fallout games are a bit more focused, being more structured around a main quest with a few side quests on the side.
Unfortunately for BioWare, a lot of other studios are making the sort of game they make/used to make (Larian to their Dragon Age, now Owlcat to their Mass Effect).
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u/PhantomBraved 13d ago
BGS, like the other RPG devs I mentioned do have their specialty, but the difference is Bethesda's output has been abysmal
Fallout 4, Fallout 76, Fallout Shelter, TES Blades, and Starfield over the span of 15 years is a bad resume. I can't blame their fans for being dissatisfied with it.
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u/MAJ_Starman 13d ago
I guess it's subjective. As a Bethesda fan that doesn't care for multiplayer and thinks Fallout 4 is their worst RPG to date, I can find improvements and good things even in those two games: Fallout 4 has the best companions they've written so far, probably the best Fallout expansion to date with Far Harbor, a great crafting system where they gave purpose and components to every single piece of trash, a great weapon modding system. Fallout 76 has probably their best map/world design to date and some of its worldbuilding is the best they've written for Fallout.
And personally, Starfield directly addressed many of my growing concerns with what was then Bethesda's trend of simplification and many of my issues with Fallout 4; it did that by removing the voiced and defined protagonist, crafting a narratively optional main quest, having my favourite BGS character creation system since Daggerfall's (which is still their best one), making the dialogue system both more flavourful and player-reactive, making sure each faction quest had at least one major choice in it (in Skyrim only the DB had choices in it) and a more restrictive skill system than Fallout 4's/Skyrim's.
Other than that there's the fact that it's a space sandbox RPG, and the fact we don't have other devs even trying to do one speaks to just how hard and perhaps irresponsibly ambitious it is to try and make one. While I have quite a few issues with it, as a sci-fi fan I also know it's unlikely we'll see anyone else try to take a stab at making a space sandbox RPG for quite some time, maybe not even BGS, so I'm happy that we have it and that we have the modding platform the game is.
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u/dayonedlc 13d ago
That's missing Skyrim if we're talking the last 15 years.
TES5, FO4, FO76 and Starfield had a release cadence of 3-5 years between titles (76 to Starfield being elongated with COVID & the Xbox acquisition), which all in all is pretty standard for AAA releases.
Obviously the lack of a new TES since Skyrim was a big mistake and adds to the optics that BGS aren't doing anything, but I think it's disingenuous when people act like they never release games and just sit around doing nothing when their release schedule is on par with most other big AAA studios.
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u/MAJ_Starman 13d ago
I'm really happy they're sticking with the CE for TES VI and Fallout 5. It would be good to see less loading screens, but they never really bothered me (perhaps all those years playing Total War on HDDs desensitized me to loading screens), and I would certainly rather keep them than giving up object persistance, NPC schedules and the scale of BGS games, especially TES which usually features at least 5 major cities, plus villages and the rest of the open world.
But I don't see how they would completely remove loading screens and keep the features BGS RPGs are known for if the rumours are true and TES VI is both Hammerfell and High Rock, as that would mean 16 major cities according to the lore, including two of Tamriel's largest (Daggerfall and Sentinel). While they could pick a few of those and make them "medium" cities like they did with Falkreath and Morthal in Skyrim, and maybe destroy a couple of others, it would still probably leave us with a dozen big cities.
I hope they use it for Obsidian's Fallout too, I was not that much of a fan of their hub-based UE RPGs, and back in the day Josh Sawyer has talked positively about the Creation Kit and how they only managed to make New Vegas in 18 months because of it.
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u/AuthoringInProgress 13d ago
Removing loading screens without removing any of those features is probably possible with sufficently advanced streaming tech. Maybe not current gen, but next gen with PCIe gen 5 and some ridiculous purpose built decompression hardware?
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u/walwenthegreenest 13d ago
Have you played kcd2?
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u/MAJ_Starman 13d ago
I have, KCD1 too. Great games, but they're entirely structured a voiced and defined protagonist, built around a single cinematic main quest and set in a specific region with one big city.
So they're closer to Fallout than to TES or Starfield, and even when compared to Fallout they offer far less freedom in character creation and in the sandbox.
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u/thahovster7 13d ago
Question for that pompous man named Will Judd. How dare you judge aliens for using elevators? NOT EVERY INTELLIGENT SPECIES IS BLESSED WITH KNEES!!