I know there’s great love for Oblivion (I never played it when it was new), and of course Skyrim is the gold standard for new fans (I played the shit out of that and it was my first entry into the elder scrolls back when it came out 14 years ago…) but I really feel like this shadow drop of a half assed remake is just priming everyone to lower their expectations for the likely dumpster fire that is The Elder Scrolls VI.
I know its old hat nonsense of a complaint but whatever Bethesda used to be it stopped being that 20 years ago and we’re all just stuck thinking they’ll put out some new masterpiece when in reality all the talent they had back in the day has likely left for other jobs and they are now just a shitty company among countless other shitty companies putting profit over anything else and stifling anyone who might actually have good ideas on how to make good games (how unsurprising).
Played Morrowind, Oblivion, and Skyrim as they came out. Love the series. But it also felt like Skyrim lost something (not that it stopped me from sinking a stupid amount of hours into the game or playing it about twice a year.) And you know, my expectations for the next TES aren’t super high. But the thing is, it’s not what Bethesda is going to do with it that really gets me excited. It’s the hope that modding will continue to be heavily supported and what the community will do with the game. I have far more faith in modders than I do in Bethesda. The new TES not being packaged with modding support, to me, that would be the deathknell of TES.