I agree almost 100% with you on this. I did play Oblivion, but Skyrim has the more interesting world IMO which makes it a slightly better game. The strength of Bethesda games that makes them good, in my opinion, is the same every time: explore a large interesting world with your own created character. This explains (in part) why people like Morrowind so much: the world is just so weird and interesting.
The problem is they don’t know how to improve on that concept. Instead they are mostly adding features that either don’t add anything to it or actively detract from it. For example, Fallout 4 received settlement building and weapon crafting. But, the time I’m spending on my town, I’m not actually out exploring. If I can craft weapons, I care less about the cool weapons I find in dungeons. Now, Starfield got rid of most of the crafted world altogether in exchange for procedural planets that aren’t interesting to explore at all.
Aan an aside, I don’t think it even makes sense to compare the first two fallout games with the Bethesda ones. Fallout 3 and beyond are not really sequels, they’re a completely different series set in the same universe.
Fallout 3 and beyond are not really sequels, they’re a completely different series set in the same universe.
I would argue they’re not even the same universe. While F1 had its share of of people living in post-war rubble, by F2 the world was mostly newly-build cities or primitive societies but there was a sense of progress, like having actual money (and by Tactics paper money was in everyday use). Then F3 comes and everyone is living in a pile of rubbish, with unreadable burnt pre-war books on their shelves like they want to pretend the world is how it used to be, nevermind that generations have passed, and everyone is back to trading in caps.
Yeah, that’s weird of the new Fallout games, there’s people sleeping on 200-years old mattresses (what are they made of, asbestos?). I get the destruction, and I understand how they may not be able to rebuild civilization to the old standards for a long while, but ffs, at least patch your walls!
There’s an industry to make new guns but people just step over the skeleton in the lobby of the half-collapsed hotel the three dozen residents call “Halftower” without a drop of irony.
I agree almost 100% with you on this. I did play Oblivion, but Skyrim has the more interesting world IMO which makes it a slightly better game. The strength of Bethesda games that makes them good, in my opinion, is the same every time: explore a large interesting world with your own created character. This explains (in part) why people like Morrowind so much: the world is just so weird and interesting.
The problem is they don’t know how to improve on that concept. Instead they are mostly adding features that either don’t add anything to it or actively detract from it. For example, Fallout 4 received settlement building and weapon crafting. But, the time I’m spending on my town, I’m not actually out exploring. If I can craft weapons, I care less about the cool weapons I find in dungeons. Now, Starfield got rid of most of the crafted world altogether in exchange for procedural planets that aren’t interesting to explore at all.
Aan an aside, I don’t think it even makes sense to compare the first two fallout games with the Bethesda ones. Fallout 3 and beyond are not really sequels, they’re a completely different series set in the same universe.
I would argue they’re not even the same universe. While F1 had its share of of people living in post-war rubble, by F2 the world was mostly newly-build cities or primitive societies but there was a sense of progress, like having actual money (and by Tactics paper money was in everyday use). Then F3 comes and everyone is living in a pile of rubbish, with unreadable burnt pre-war books on their shelves like they want to pretend the world is how it used to be, nevermind that generations have passed, and everyone is back to trading in caps.
Yeah, that’s weird of the new Fallout games, there’s people sleeping on 200-years old mattresses (what are they made of, asbestos?). I get the destruction, and I understand how they may not be able to rebuild civilization to the old standards for a long while, but ffs, at least patch your walls!
There’s an industry to make new guns but people just step over the skeleton in the lobby of the half-collapsed hotel the three dozen residents call “Halftower” without a drop of irony.
I think you’re right. Maybe they should make a game based on Scavengers Reign.