An Incomplete History Of Bethesda Game Studio Titles

[Huntn]

Would love to hear your experiences with Bethesda gaming. 😁

• Elder Scrolls 3 Morrowind (2002) was before my time, being a Mac person only, for a while inhibited me. And my impression is it was ground breaking.
• Elder Scrolls 4 Oblivion (2006) My first Bethesda title which blew me away, see that mountain, climb that mountain without a screen load. Great immersive natural environments. I bought all of the DLCs. And later I tried playing Morrowind, but it had become too primitive for my tastes at that point.
• Fallout 3 (2008) was not to my liking, I think at the time, it was the wasteland setting and feel did not appeal to me, did not finish, but I might go back and try it again.
• Elder Scrolls 5 Skyrim (2011) a solid hit, music and environment. I loved the story and setting. Was playing it a second time about a year ago when with motherboard crash I somehow ended up losing my progress with it.
• Fallout 4 (2015) solid hit, managing settlements, companions, and the story for me, that was a home run, great DLCs. Holy Crap, Armageddon, Serious spoilers here, skip if you don’t want them spoiled: You barely make it inside the vault you just paid for, but little do you know it’s a cryogenic storage facility, you climb into a machine not knowing this, while your spouse and your baby sits across from you and the lights go out. You wakes from your slumber to see your spouse murdered, your baby taken, and then you’re back asleep. Some time later, you wake up to find the vault is deserted and breaking down, and your mission is to find your baby son in a broken down civilization filled with raiders, radiation, and mutated things. There're some serious surprises in store for you. Some incredible mods fix most complaints of mine, such as the game forcing you to build with junk, even though tech is available to build a respectable house or building. Solid atmospheric music and environment. Good companion interactions, decent companion stories and quests to help them. Great voice acting. I could settle down with both Cait and Piper in my fantasy Fallout 4 setting, in fact I basically did with the Santuary Hot Springs Settlement Mod. 😊
• Fallout 76 (2018) Not for me. Strictly opinion, but don’t turn a solo adventure into online theme park. Of note, I played World of Warcraft for several years, but I outgrew the environment. Playing with friends can be fun (Conan Exiles, ARK Survival Evolved) on small private servers, but I’ve outgrown that too, or tired of it. Typically I’d be playing in a guild with people who lived on the game and would complete it, before I was ready to move on. Those games had base building components and I love base building, so it annoyed me to abandon a setting that I could not stay at for as long as I wanted after putting what could be hundreds of hours in it building my base.
• Starfield (2023) Arguably the biggest and overall most disappointing. Bethesda bit off more than it could chew. Some aspects are good, even stellar, traveling around the Galaxy, ship building, very nicely detailed planets, nice environments, acceptable space combat, but planets with only a few procedurally placed, repeat facilities and nothing else to discover on those planets. It could have been an intriguing story, in fact at the beginning it is intriguing, mysterious relics that provide a psychedelic musical experience when obtained, with potentially answering the mystery of the Galaxy, but it quickly becomes repetitive and awareness sets in that it’s shallow. And the story imo, turns out to be half assed and not satisfying at all, which I explained in more depth at the end of the Starfield thread. Plus an outdated (for today) social mechanism that was the same as Fallout 4, that today feels and sounds awkward, along with annoying companions and voice acting. Plus an identical quest structure as F4. Compare it to Cyberpunk 2077 which what I’ve coined has dynamic quests/social interactions, as in talking to each other which frequently happens while on the move, while virtually ever discussion in SF takes place while stagnant standing still. Plus I paid $70 for Skyrim, which I’ll never (knock on wood) do that again. 😉

 

[Queen6]

Played much of the older games and still do. Newer games I tend to skip as they simply are just not very good. Quality of the game's is diminishing and simply come across as bland and uninteresting. The earlier games had a certain magic to them due to the need to be creative with worlds you could get lost in.

Fantasy wise I would rather play Daggerfall (with mods) or Skyrim. Fallout 1,2,3 & New Vegas, FO4 is too soft for my liking and I'm far more invested in Metro & S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Others fall further outside of Bethesda, most recent game they published I have is Doom Eternal, equally I suspect ID holds the reigns firmly and is not willing to bow down.

My own opinion is Bethesda as a developer has lost much of it's talent and too busy listening to itself than listening to the paying customers. Bethesda as a publisher is solely interested profit at all cost employing numerous anti consumer practice's... As a company they are not alone with such tactics, however I think many gamers have reached saturation point due to poor optimisation, outright buggy, mediocre writing and micro transactions in a full price games.

A fair summary

If these large studios & publishers went back to their roots they would be a far more profitable. There are reasons why studios & publishers in the east are thriving and profiting while western studios & publisher's flush themselves down the toilet...

Q-6

 

[Huntn]

Played much of the older games and still do. Newer games I tend to skip as they simply are just not very good. Quality of the game's is diminishing and simply come across as bland and uninteresting. The earlier games had a certain magic to them due to the need to be creative with worlds you could get lost in.

Fantasy wise I would rather play Daggerfall (with mods) or Skyrim. Fallout 1,2,3 & New Vegas, FO4 is too soft for my liking and I'm far more invested in Metro & S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Others fall further outside of Bethesda, most recent game they published I have is Doom Eternal, equally I suspect ID holds the reigns firmly and is not willing to bow down.

My own opinion is Bethesda as a developer has lost much of it's talent and too busy listening to itself than listening to the paying customers. Bethesda as a publisher is solely interested profit at all cost employing numerous anti consumer practice's... As a company they are not alone with such tactics, however I think many gamers have reached saturation point due to poor optimisation, outright buggy, mediocre writing and micro transactions in a full price games.

A fair summary

If these large studios & publishers went back to their roots they would be a far more profitable. There are reasons why studios & publishers in the east are thriving and profiting while western studios & publisher's flush themselves down the toilet...

Q-6

Is ID still in the game business? Have they published any games lately? Rhetorical. I might ask the same about Valve. Half Life was wonderful. It was the first game like that I played on the PC and was in love.

 

[Queen6]

Is ID still in the game business? Have they published any games lately? Rhetorical. I might ask the same about Valve. Half Life was wonderful. It was the first game like that I played on the PC and was in love.

DOOM: The Dark Ages

DOOM: The Dark Ages is the single-player, action FPS prequel to the critically acclaimed DOOM (2016) and DOOM Eternal. You are the DOOM Slayer, the legendary demon-killing warrior fighting endlessly against Hell. Experience the epic cinematic origin story of the DOOM Slayer's rage in 2025.

doom.bethesda.net

Seemingly alive and well

Q-6

 

[Huntn]

Brought from another thread: A discussion of how Bethesda went wrong. Created before Starfield was released.

Just watched this. I might go back and give Fallout New Vegas another shot. Do you know if you could have a companion in that game? Yeah an update mod might be helpful.

I agree completely about what was said regarding Fallout 76, but I still love Fallout 4. 🙂 I found the story to be completely intriguing and I found the factions to be good and the and the choices you can make, compelling. Now that said I haven’t had a chance to compare and see how in-depth the storytelling is in Fallout New Vegas.

And, it’s too bad that he didn’t amend this or updated with how he felt about Starfield. That one pissed me off. It definitely wasn’t worth $70.

 

[Plutonius]

Brought from another thread: A discussion of how Bethesda went wrong. Created before Starfield was released.

Just watched this. I might go back and give Fallout New Vegas another shot. Do you know if you could have a companion in that game? Yeah an update mod might be helpful.

I agree completely about what was said regarding Fallout 76, but I still love Fallout 4. 🙂 I found the story to be completely intriguing and I found the factions to be good and the and the choices you can make, compelling. Now that said I haven’t had a chance to compare and see how in-depth the storytelling is in Fallout New Vegas.

And, it’s too bad that he didn’t amend this or updated with how he felt about Starfield. That one pissed me off. It definitely wasn’t worth $70.

I never played Fallout 76 but, the people I know who have played the game, highly recommend it. All of them said that it was a poor game when it was first released but that it's an excellent game now.

No Man's Sky was not that good when it was first released but is excellent now. Maybe Fallout 76 is similar.

 

[Huntn]

I never played Fallout 76 but, the people I know who have played the game, highly recommend it. All of them said that it was a poor game when it was first released but that it's an excellent game now.

No Man's Sky was not that good when it was first released but is excellent now. Maybe Fallout 76 is similar.

After many years of playing large and small server games, these days I’m demanding purity in my game world. 😉 Imagine West World, I don’t want to mingle with tourists from my world. I want my game world shaped by me, not queues, nor messages ported to me from the Game Gods about special events I might miss. Total immersion requires the player to be the sole visitor in a pristine world such as Fallout or Cyberpunk. Yet, there are still a couple of games I’ll play as PVP, or consider as 2 or 3 players in a PVE environment, on occasion.

 

[Huntn]

The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion Remastered $49.99, are they kidding? 🤔 Originally came out 2006, Game of the Year 2009 with 9 DLCs (now priced at $20), which I never played GOTY because I had bought all the DLCs as they were released. Not paying $50 for that...

 

[salamanderjuice]

The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion Remastered $49.99, are they kidding? 🤔 Originally came out 2006, Game of the Year 2009 with 9 DLCs (now priced at $20), which I never played GOTY because I had bought all the DLCs as they were released. Not paying $50 for that...

Is that too high? I've played a little since it's on game pass. Seems like a complete overhaul at least. Not just slightly better textures and models.

 

[Huntn]

Is that too high? I've played a little since it's on game pass. Seems like a complete overhaul at least. Not just slightly better textures and models.

Too high for me as a 20 year old game that I played though all of it, that’s been spiffed up. 🙃 This strikes me as milking the franchise. How about $20? 🤔 Besides the bitching, this was the game, that happily roped me into Bethesda gaming. I was impressed by “see that mountain, climb that mountain” with no screen loads, although there were loads to enter a town or a dungeon. I liked that I could mix and match classes, being basically a battle mage, and I liked making my own powerful spells and becoming the head of several factions.

I was repeat-playing Skyrim (a sequel) last year until a broken computer interrupted me.

 

[salamanderjuice]

Too high for me as a 20 year old game that I played though all of it, that’s been spiffed up. 🙃 This strikes me as milking the franchise. How about $20? 🤔 Besides the bitching, this was the game, that happily roped me into Bethesda gaming. I was impressed by “see that mountain, climb that mountain” with no screen loads, although there were loads to enter a town or a dungeon. I liked that I could mix and match classes, being basically a battle mage, and I liked making my own powerful spells and becoming the head of several factions.

I was repeat-playing Skyrim (a sequel) last year until a broken computer interrupted me.

I don't think I'd pay $50 for it either, but I have bought Oblivion multiple times on multiple platforms and played through it too already. Maybe I'll get a PC copy down the line on sale for the Steam Deck. We'll see.

I do think compared to a lot of remasters though the price is fair for what's been done. For people that haven't played the original I think it's a decent deal. And it's nice that they did something to a game that's NOT Skyrim for once.

 

[Queen6]

Same here, have more than enough fantasy based RPG's to keep me going. Will wait on deal, preferably on GOG...

Q-6

 

[maflynn]

Too high for me as a 20 year old game that I played though all of it, that’s been spiffed up

I'm not around here much anymore but I stumbled upon this thread and I wanted to give my $.02 on Oblivion.
From the YT sites I watch, and other online forums, this re-release is massive.

I came across one article (not sure where now) where one of the ex-Bethesda developers who worked on Skyrim (maybe Oblivion), and starfield said Remaster doesn't do what Virtuos and Bethesda Game Studios did. This isn't just a re-skinning or re-texturing of the game, so much of the game was changed but a lot of the oddities and peculiarities were kept in. To put it another way, its not a 20 year old game that was spiffed up a bit.

Its being reported as a massive hit, I've not played Oblivion before and I'll buy it, soon I'm sure
Oblivion Remastered hit 4 million players in less than a week, with a big chunk of them buying the game on Steam

Its crazy to think that a nearly 20 year old game was remastered and sold 4 million copies in less then a week and hit over 200k of online users on steam (not counting consoles.). This is even without official mod support, and the crashing issues that were being reported.

no matter how you slice it, this game is an unmitigated success, and I look forward to what BGS will do with Fallout 3, hopefully that will gt the same treatment - rumors are swirling that it will be remastered - not sure how remastered it will be

 

[salamanderjuice]

I'm not around here much anymore but I stumbled upon this thread and I wanted to give my $.02 on Oblivion.
From the YT sites I watch, and other online forums, this re-release is massive.

I came across one article (not sure where now) where one of the ex-Bethesda developers who worked on Skyrim (maybe Oblivion), and starfield said Remaster doesn't do what Virtuos and Bethesda Game Studios did. This isn't just a re-skinning or re-texturing of the game, so much of the game was changed but a lot of the oddities and peculiarities were kept in. To put it another way, its not a 20 year old game that was spiffed up a bit.

Its being reported as a massive hit, I've not played Oblivion before and I'll buy it, soon I'm sure
Oblivion Remastered hit 4 million players in less than a week, with a big chunk of them buying the game on Steam

Its crazy to think that a nearly 20 year old game was remastered and sold 4 million copies in less then a week and hit over 200k of online users on steam (not counting consoles.). This is even without official mod support, and the crashing issues that were being reported.

no matter how you slice it, this game is an unmitigated success, and I look forward to what BGS will do with Fallout 3, hopefully that will gt the same treatment - rumors are swirling that it will be remastered - not sure how remastered it will be

View attachment 2505841

Yeah, they definitely did a lot. Visually it's very much a remake, just with the bones of the original for the most part for better and worse. Better graphics and animations. That said, it does have it's share of problems. The PC version seems to be in a rough state, consoles are a bit better.

 

[maflynn]

hat said, it does have it's share of problems. The PC version seems

Indeed, there's significant stability issues. Of all of the complaints of the Gamebryo/Creation engine, I see people complaining about unreal engine 5. It seems the people of reddit are never satisfied, they complain when Bethesda rolls out yet another game off of their Creation engine, and when Oblivion is released with the graphics being run by the unreal engine, people are complaining.

 

[salamanderjuice]

Indeed, there's significant stability issues. Of all of the complaints of the Gamebryo/Creation engine, I see people complaining about unreal engine 5. It seems the people of reddit are never satisfied, they complain when Bethesda rolls out yet another game off of their Creation engine, and when Oblivion is released with the graphics being run by the unreal engine, people are complaining.

It's not just stability but performance in general is pretty bad even by UE5 standards:

 

[maflynn]

It's not just stability but performance in general is pretty bad even by UE5 standards:

If you use FFR, that actually makes things better. Not DLSS but FFR - its possibly a bug with nvidia drivers/dlss

 

[Huntn]

I'm not around here much anymore but I stumbled upon this thread and I wanted to give my $.02 on Oblivion.
From the YT sites I watch, and other online forums, this re-release is massive.

I came across one article (not sure where now) where one of the ex-Bethesda developers who worked on Skyrim (maybe Oblivion), and starfield said Remaster doesn't do what Virtuos and Bethesda Game Studios did. This isn't just a re-skinning or re-texturing of the game, so much of the game was changed but a lot of the oddities and peculiarities were kept in. To put it another way, its not a 20 year old game that was spiffed up a bit.

Its being reported as a massive hit, I've not played Oblivion before and I'll buy it, soon I'm sure
Oblivion Remastered hit 4 million players in less than a week, with a big chunk of them buying the game on Steam

Its crazy to think that a nearly 20 year old game was remastered and sold 4 million copies in less then a week and hit over 200k of online users on steam (not counting consoles.). This is even without official mod support, and the crashing issues that were being reported.

no matter how you slice it, this game is an unmitigated success, and I look forward to what BGS will do with Fallout 3, hopefully that will gt the same treatment - rumors are swirling that it will be remastered - not sure how remastered it will be

Is FFR something that is chosen in game settings?

I was halfway though a Skyrim replay in the first half of 2024 when I had a major issue on my PC and it screwed me up with it. There are cloud saves, but I need to get the mods restablished, and I’d more than likely do that than return to Oblivion, at least until it comes down substantially on sale. In Skyrim I love the dynamics of the Thalmore interferring in the realm. Yet Oblivion was amazing for its time. I loved crafting powerful spells, which was nerfed in Skyrim. But bottom line, just imo, they are just milking old hits… Maybe their new business will be remastering all the old titles, which might keep them going for a while. Starfield don’t get me started. 😛

 

[maflynn]

Is FFR something that is chosen in game settings?

I don't have the game, but yes. AMD's FSR is a competitor to Nvidia's DLSS. One of the major differences between FSR and DLSS, is that FSR can be used for non-AMD GPUs, while DLSS is locked into Nvidia's own GPUs

I'm not saying that FSR is superior, I believe DLSS especially the latest version that is restricted to RTS 50 series GPUs is much better, but in this specific case, FSR seems to fix the frame rate issues, and makes Obliviion a lot more smoother - at least that's what is being shown on some youtubes.

I enjoy Skyrim, and its been fun, and its a game that has the ability for continual play throughs, even after all of these years. I've only heard how much better oblivion is, though I think it has less POIs (Points of Interest), so there's less stuff to see while moving around - I can't say that with authority, since I've never played.

I've been watching videos, so I can hit the ground running in terms of starting, character creation and leveling up

 

[maflynn]

An interesting take on Oblivion, and Bethesda regarding Oblivion, Fallout 3, and possibly another skyrim remake?

 

[Queen6]

Just play Enderal...

Is completely free no strings attached if you own Skyrim on GOG or Steam
Is more than a mod, Enderal an entire fully realised game that some think is better than Skyrim...

As for Oblivion I'll wait on Skyblivion, 13 years in the making...

The Elder Scrolls: Skyblivion

Skyblivion is a volunteer-based project by the TESRenewal modding group aims to remake Oblivion in the Skyrim engine

skyblivion.com

Is scheduled to release this year

Q-6

 

[maflynn]

I felt bad for the skyblivion people until I read that the development of skyblivion started in 2012. That opened the door for Bethesda to do something

 

[maflynn]

So much for FSR. Looks like an update to the game that landed last friday removed upscaling (both DLSS and FSR)

Yoooo why would @virtuosgames push an update to Oblivion Remastered that removes all upscaling right before the games first weekend?!!?

No DLSS
No FSR

RIP playable performance....

** Disable auto updates or disable internet connection **@bethesda @BethesdaStudios SAVE US! pic.twitter.com/EwJ5eu5qUN

— Twon. (@Web3Twon) April 25, 2025

 

[Queen6]

I felt bad for the skyblivion people until I read that the development of skyblivion started in 2012. That opened the door for Bethesda to do something

Kind of curious if Skyrim will magically update, just like Fallout 4 did on the launch of Fallout London. I've backed up my GOG version of Skyrim and killed auto update for the game just in case...

So much for FSR. Looks like an update to the game that landed last friday removed upscaling (both DLSS and FSR)

Yoooo why would @virtuosgames push an update to Oblivion Remastered that removes all upscaling right before the games first weekend?!!?

No DLSS
No FSR

RIP playable performance....

** Disable auto updates or disable internet connection **@bethesda @BethesdaStudios SAVE US! pic.twitter.com/EwJ5eu5qUN

— Twon. (@Web3Twon) April 25, 2025

TBH UE5 is more trouble than it's worth as it kills a lot of performance in many games. I dont want photo realistic, I want fluid gameplay.

Q-6

 

[salamanderjuice]

Kind of curious if Skyrim will magically update, just like Fallout 4 did on the launch of Fallout London. I've backed up my GOG version of Skyrim and killed auto update for the game just in case...

TBH UE5 is more trouble than it's worth as it kills a lot of performance in many games. I dont want photo realistic, I want fluid gameplay.

Q-6

Skyrim already updated. Fallout 4 updated for support on XSX/PS5 and those changes found their way back to PC. Skyrim was already updated for XSX and PS5 for the "Anniversary Edition" and the big PC game breaking stuff happened with the Special Edition for PS4/XONE release. Could they update them again? I suppose, but I'd imagine they'd at least wait for new consoles or something worthwhile updating them for.

The old version of Oblivion is still available too.