LogInBaldur's Gate 3's success didn't affect Todd Howard's love for minimalism.
If you are among the lucky individuals who had the pleasure of experiencing pre-Skyrim The Elder Scrolls games, chances are you might remember the abundance of RPG mechanics and stats Bethesda's most iconic game series once had to offer – from climbing and dodging to etiquette and different languages.
You might also remember that following Daggerfall, both Oblivion and even the beloved Morrowind faced criticism from dedicated fans for what can only be described as "oversimplification," which involved removing various skills and abilities that, while perhaps not essential, significantly enhanced the games' sense of immersion.
The criticism reached its peak in 2011 with the release of Skyrim, when Bethesda decided to crank minimalism up to 11 and remove attributes like Strength and Speed that were present in previous games, eliminate the Major/Minor skill division, making all skills equal, ditch character classes like Agent, Battlemage, and everyone's favorite Adventurer (aka Custom Class), and drastically simplify the leveling system.
While it's undeniable that this approach helped Skyrim achieve its impressive sales numbers, it's equally true that Bethesda's numerous oversimplifications made it harder for players to truly immerse themselves in the roles they wanted to play, with many justifiably viewing the most iconic RPG of all time not as a true role-playing game, but rather as an open-world action-adventure with RPG elements sprinkled in.
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More than a decade has passed since then, and with the current decade's biggest RPG, Baldur's Gate 3, becoming a universally acclaimed title despite its numerous D&D mechanics – mechanics that would likely be considered "too difficult" by Skyrim standards – many old-school fans of The Elder Scrolls became hopeful, believing that BG3's success would inspire their favorite game series to finally abandon the trend of oversimplification and return to its role-playing roots, or at least bring back attributes and Major/Minor skills.
Unfortunately, those high hopes were recently dashed by Skyrim Lead Designer Bruce Nesmith, who said in an interview that he doesn't see Bethesda changing its ways because of BG3's success, suggesting that the upcoming TES 6 will likely be more similar to Fallout 4 and Skyrim in terms of its RPG potential, rather than returning to the depth of Morrowind and Daggerfall.
"I don't think [Baldur's Gate 3's success] necessarily presages a complete change over back to more numbers and more fiddly character sheets and things like that," Nesmith explained to VideoGamer. "Whether or not the rest of the industry will follow suit, I don't know. I'm not smart enough to say that, But I think that through Skyrim, Bethesda has wanted to have the game get out of its own way.
You see that everywhere in Skyrim. Todd [Howard] is a big proponent of the interface vanishing if you're not doing something that needs it to be visible. So all you see is the world. That's it. You just see the world."
The developer also revealed that he was among the loudest voices within Bethesda advocating for oversimplification, arguing that it was in the best interest of the players, who, according to Nesmith, didn't want "outrageously complex character sheets."
"In the days of Daggerfall, everybody was trying to replicate the tabletop experience, which means that you were rules-heavy," commented Nesmith. "Your character description was large and, I would argue unwieldy, and as time moved forward, that was less and less of interest to the audience. They didn't want to have outrageously complex character sheets, and I was actually one who aggressively pushed for streamlining."
Moreover, the developer described Larian's success as an "exception," stating that their goal with BG3 was to deliver a "joy buzzer" to those who either used to play Dungeons & Dragons in the past or continue to play it today.
"When you look at something like Baldur's Gate 3, I think that's a very different animal. They had a very specific charge. They were taking Dungeons & Dragons 5th edition and putting it onto a computer game. So it was intentionally looking backward, intentionally seeing the old tabletop presentation with the die rolls and all of that. It was, you know, reflecting back to the good old days from the point of view of the people who used to play those kinds of old playing games back then or did now to give them that joy buzzer. So I think Baldur's Gate 3 is actually an exception to that."
No matter what your personal take on Nesmith's revelations is, it's hard to argue that the idea of Bethesda not changing its approach to game design sounds a bit concerning, considering the studio's track record.
It's no secret that the launch of Skyrim marked the studio's shift from fully-fledged RPGs into games with RPG elements, with gameplay more similar to Far Cry or Dying Light than Bethesda's own earlier titles. While this strategy did work with Fallout 4 – which, despite turning the post-apocalyptic RPG into a shooter with perks, sold more copies than Fallout 3 and New Vegas combined – it seems to have outlived its usefulness.
Fallout 76 aside, as that's another story entirely, the studio's most recent title, Starfield, failed to impress the community, and that's putting it mildly, currently holding a 59% score on Steam and a 5.5/10 on Metacritic.
While Bethesda might have brushed off those scores (critics did give Starfield an 85/100, after all), a recent report estimated that the 2023 space-themed shooter sold as few as 3 million copies, with Bethesda's claim of "10 million players" allegedly inflated by Game Pass subscribers. If the report is accurate, it seems clear that the studio's approach has fallen short, and if they want The Elder Scrolls 6 to succeed, shipping "Skyrim 2" with even more gameplay mechanics cut out simply won't do.
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What are your thoughts on Bethesda's approach to The Elder Scrolls series? Should the studio focus on innovation and the return of cut features, or prioritize recognizability and actually give us Skyrim 2? Share your thoughts in the comments!
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