There are many misconceptions about video game development that continue to this day despite decades of proof to the contrary. One of them is that video game developers rarely “stress about their titles” unless they’re in “crunch mode” or simply unsure how people will receive the game. The fact is that game developers stress about their titles all the time for various reasons, both internal and external. The bigger the game, the more the stress piles in. Starfield is an excellent example of this. Numerous people, from Todd Howard to others at Bethesda, have noted the stresses of working on the game and attempting to make it great.
For example, Starfield designer Emil Pagliarulo posted on Twitter about his time making the game and his respect for Bethesda titles before coming to work with the team. You can see the start of his thread below. But what we want to focus on is two key parts of it.
Specifically, we will talk about the stress he admitted he had during the final years of development: “Having now had time to properly reflect on Starfield, goddamn am I proud of what we achieved. A new world to live in. A brand new IP. The beginning of a new dream. We pulled it off! A lot of it still feels surreal, to be honest. God, I was stressed for 2 years straight.”
He also noted: “The game’s reception has reinvigorated my love of world creation and game development. And I’m so honored to be making games for the very studio that showed me, so long ago, what it is to truly enter another world.”
Yeah, about that…
You see, while Bethesda’s newest title garnered plenty of praise at the start of its run, the longer we’ve gotten away from the game, the more the feelings have “mellowed out.” Specifically, many gamers have straight-up stopped playing the title even though they’re not even close to finishing up its story and side missions.
To them, and by “them,” we mean a LARGE number of gamers, the game feels more “empty” than past Bethesda titles. Plus, unlike Skyrim, it’s not as “engaging” and thus doesn’t keep bringing them back for more. While some have hailed it as the “game of the generation,” if you go to the Steam page, you’ll see the game averages a 7/10 and only manages a “mostly positive” rating out of 70K reviews.
But hey, at least Emil had a good time with it!
