There are certain types of video games out there that can easily maintain or receive numerous updates or DLC expansions over the years to help “keep itself relevant” while also continuing to make the game a lot of money. You might know of one certain online title from Rockstar Games that has been raking in the dough for almost a decade now. However, no matter how successful, other titles sometimes have to stop what they’re doing so that they can move on. In the case of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, that is what happened, as they made a couple of big sets of DLC and then moved on.
Yet, you can’t help but wonder why. After all, the adventures within the land of Skyrim are some of the greatest of all time, even when you realize that it came out in 2011 and we’ve had new experiences since then. You can easily say that many RPGs have tried and failed to meet what this title did, including various Bethesda games. Plus, when you look at the numerous re-releases of the title, you get the feeling that Bethesda wanted to make more content but didn’t.
However, according to Lead Designer Bruce Nesmith, everyone on the dev team knew that they had to go and do something else, and for basic reasons. He told the VideoGamer:
“That was not on the table. Imagine if Skyrim had never been made, and all we kept doing was just completely reinventing Oblivion. You know, what a crying shame that would be. All the innovations in Skyrim, technically, graphically, design-wise, everything else, just not there because we just wanted to keep making more of the same.”
Nesmith also admitted there were more personal and technological reasons for not cranking out more DLC. For the former, he noted that the team wanted to “exercise new creative muscles” and do a different game entirely, which Bethesda did with mixed results. However, another issue was that since the game was initially released on the Xbox 360 and PS3, the consoles themselves wouldn’t have been able to handle more DLC content. Granted, that wouldn’t have applied to future re-releases, but by that point, they were already working on other titles.
The irony here is that this RPG was the “peak” of Bethesda in many respects, as the two main games that came out after them were met with not as much praise or were downright divisive. Plus, despite them announcing a sixth entry in the series, it’s nowhere close to being done.
