It’s been almost 13 years since the release of The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim, and love for the legendary game hasn’t dwindled, with modders continuing to refine the game’s graphics and gameplay and fans still returning each time a bit of nostalgia is needed. Though it’s unclear when players can expect The Elder Scrolls 6, Bethesda is no doubt making plans. Excitement is fine, but one Bethesda veteran thinks people should chill a little bit.
In a recent interview with Kiwi Talkz, Bruce Nesmith, the lead designer on Skyrim, explained that given Bethesda’s incredible track record with open-world RPGs, fan expectations for the next title in the series may be a tad too high.
“The fans who want to buy Elder Scrolls 6, their expectation is going to be almost impossible to meet,” Nesmith said. “And marketing departments just put their heads in their hands and weep at this. Because it’s like, ‘Okay, if it isn’t perfect, it doesn’t get a 95-plus on Metacritic, we’re a failure’.”
Proof of this can be seen in Starfield which, despite its massive scope and potential for exploration, has been heavily criticized by fans.
“Elder Scrolls 6 is undoubtedly going to be an amazing game, but it’s going to be compared to all the previous games that Bethesda made,” Nesmith explains.
“Imagine for a moment that you work at Larian Studios. They just released Baldur’s Gate 3, and now they’ve got to make another game. What are the expectations going to be on that studio’s next project? Larian was not a studio that was uppermost on everybody’s mind, didn’t fall off the lips of the vast majority of people buying videogames. They weren’t what everybody considered to be a top-tier publisher.
Well, guess what? They are now. They’re on the map now, and that means the expectations are sky high for them.”
