While there have been numerous layoffs within the video game industry lately, there’s another reason why people leave companies: they want change. Not all of it is in a negative context, either. Sometimes, a new opportunity comes up, and they want to see where it takes them. Or, they’ve been with a company for so long that they want to try something fresh and see what it’s like elsewhere. However, sometimes, people leave because they can “see bad things coming” and don’t want to be part of it. That appears to be what happened to a former Starfield member who now runs his own studio.
Nate Purkeypile was a former Lead Artist at Bethesda, and he helped develop many of the company’s biggest titles. However, as he noted on Reddit, he left the company to make Purkey Games while still developing Starfield because he could tell that the team was just getting “too big” and that wasn’t “his style.”
“I know a lot of people have thoughts on Starfield and how it is probably too big, should have been smaller, etc.” he noted in the post revealing the trailer for his new game. I agree with a lot of that and while I enjoyed working at Bethesda a lot when we were about 65-110 people on Fallout 3 and Skyrim, I enjoyed it a lot less as it grew and grew. I had a lot of fun building spaces a lot of you have probably seen like Diamond City, Blackreach [and] Little Lamplight. I was lead artist on Point Lookout and Fallout 76 and more.”
Nate went on to state that Bethesda’s newest title had over 500 people working on the game across numerous companies and outsourcing locations. That was far too much in his mind, and it hurt the experience:
“There were so many meetings and it wasn’t the way I liked to build games. I like being able to just move fast and build unique things.”
One might think that he’s “complaining” that he didn’t get to “do what he wanted,” but it’s a legitimate complaint against his former company, especially when you recall the various criticisms and complaints the RPG has had since its launch last year.
Many locations were noted to be bland or “not up to snuff” with what Bethesda did in the past. Plus, there was a situation where, despite having 500 people working on the game, they didn’t have an ending to its main campaign until a “panic button” was pressed.
Plus, Bethesda having a fraction of what it had before and making two of the most iconic RPGs ever, only to fail to repeat that with a 500+ crew, says something about what was going on there.
