"Bethesda is trash. Washed. On the decline. A shadow of their former selves!"

I hear this and similar sentiment alot from Cows. 10 of the games in the above image are from the PS4/Xbox One generation. 8 of them were within the past 5 years (though Elsweyr and TEW:The Assignment are expansions). And 2 of specifically those 8 games were even nominated for GOTY.

I know Cows have a newfound ambivalence towards Bethesda (despite Deathloop and Ghostwire Tokyo making early cameos on PS5 list wars, and Sony being impressed enough by Starfield, that they wanted it to be exclusive) but now, its stepping into the realm of delusion. I've seen some pretty nonsensical takes about how Bethesda is "on the decline" and its best days are behind them, etc.....and I figured I'd just drop into System Wars, and turn sideways and dick-smack Cows for a little bit. And remind everyone what an absolute force this publisher is.

Can we just talk about the fact that best-in-class games of 3 seperate videogame genres are represented in the photo above? WRPG, FPS, and IMMERSIVE SIMS?.

All 3 of those genres represent huge blindspots in Playstations portfolio. Microsoft basically owns the entire Mount Rushmore of WRPGs and FPS. And they own basically the only (still currently active) developer of immersive sims of prominence right now in Arkane Lyon and Arkane Austin.

While most of Playstation's exclusives have 3rd party market substitutes that you can get the same experience (and in some cases better) from......

• Spiderman? Lower metacritic score than EVERY Batman Arkam game. Batman has better combat, atmosphere, sandbox, story, etc....
• Ghost of Tsushima? just an Assassins Creed game with prettier graphics.
• Horizon? Just 3rd person Far Cry with prettier graphics.
• Gran Turismo? the audience for this game belongs to Forza.

You will NEVER get a market substitute on Playstation for Starfield or Elder Scrolls this gen. Or Avowed. Or Fable. Or Perfect Dark. Or InXile's game. Or Machine Game's game. Or Arkane's next games.

Look, I know Fallout 76 was trash, as much as the next guy, but I've seen people here suggest genuinely that Fallout 4 was trash, and that Starfield (if it indeed launches this year) wont be the biggest game of 2021. And that Elder Scrolls, the sequel to one of the highest selling games of all time, wont absolutely be the biggest game in whatever year it choses to launch in.

Anyways, just had to jump into SW, and set straight the delusional takes I've seen WRT Bethesda's quality, and output.

Thats it. that's the thread.

Game journalist opinions are typically really good.

Bethesda didn't develop most of the games you posted.

There are a whole lot of assumptions in this thread... So congrats?

"Thats it. that's the thread."

You suck Mcbain!

Bethesda Softworks subsidiaries developed every game posted.

Most of the games above were published by Bethesda but hey, they do have a habit of getting involved with developers but still...

Fallout 4 was complete garbage. Journalists were scared to give it the scores it deserved at the time.

If you yell loud enough, you can go super saiyan.

Wait, metacritic's good now? Hard to keep up.

Also, lol at yet another meltdown thread over Returnal. Lemmings are really insecure after that 9/10 dropped. "Hey you guys, don't forget about Bethesda! Hello? Can you hear me?!"

Sorry TC, most of us are busy playing games instead of sitting around waiting for 2026.

@wandering_halls: If it keeps up with *the* agenda, yeah.

Several problems with your post..

Spider-Man has the same Metacritic as Arkham Knight. I would argue it's the better game though. Better visuals, traversal, boss fights would all have to go to Spider-Man. The combat , sandbox and story would be a draw.

Ghost of Tsushima is light years ahead of any AC game. The world exploration, combat and overall polish are far ahead of anything I've seen from AC.

Horizon has better sidequest then Far Cry and a unique setting .

Gran Turismo is a Race Sim Forza is more Arcadey.

Bethesda was a great purchase for Microsoft no doubt but let's not act like we don't know the reason MS bought them.

Woe.

@uninspiredcup: You misspelled weaboo. 😉

Bethesda are best publisher of last/current gen. end of discussion.

Man people have been REALLY salty lately LMAO. Bethesda is fine. Relax. Like I've been saying, Returnal is keeping people awake at night.

Fallout 76 has been their only real disappointment in the last 10 years or so. The others have been great or just fine.

Cherry-picking is picking cherries.

Fallout: New Vegas was the best 3D Fallout game, and it wasn't even made by Bethesda. Fallout 4 seems more intent on being The Sims than an RPG.

Also, Rage 2.

Also, Wolfenstein: Youngblood.

Also, the nonsense with paid mods, Creation Club, The Elder Scrolls: Blades and the Commander Keen mobile game. And then of course there's Fallout 76.

Let's be honest here, Bethesda have never been good developers. Ambitious, yes, but not good. They're still using that rebranded Gamebryo shit 20 years later. Their games typically need about 20 mods to be playable. They can't write or tell stories to save their lives. We forgave them in the past because at least they're ambitious and tried. Fallout 76 was simply the moment the scales fell from people's eyes.

Look, I'm certainly not going to dismiss Starfield out of hand, and I do wish them the best, I really do. But where once people treated their upcoming releases with enthusiasm, these days they look to them with guarded scepticism. At the very least, no one can deny that their brand is definitely tarnished.

thats because if they go to sleep and shut the game off theyll lose all their progress.

....

lmao

Yea, I'm playing through it now in PS5 and I have to disagree.

Combat is better, polish is probably a draw......but in no way is the story and exploration better.

There's so many unique locations and things to find in assassins creed, from mountain tops to underwater.

GoTsushima is relatively empty aside from the shrines and random bandits.

I bet you never even played a Bethesda game. When these games got accolades, it didn't have shit to do with Microsoft. And it will continue to have shit to do with Microsoft. They just bought a pub with good IPs who are still going to do as they've always done, period. MS's shitty management didn't make them what they are.

@KBFloYd: I don't think anyone who has ever played a roguelike game would worry about it. Lems have been giving too much attention to it just because they need something to bitch about since everyone seems to love the game. Stay salty my dudes.

Those games, especially developed by Bethesda Game Studios, have aged terribly. Most of them are unplayable broken mess from today's standards.

Returnal epic win has caused so much distress to lems lmao.

Nah, they've always sucked.

So instead of the game that uses the wind to guide you with virtually no hud you prefer the mini map with shit all over the screen?

And the polish is the same? What game are you playing? Look at the animation and hit detection on any AC game it's Jank as ****.

And the story in the later AC's are convoluted trash.

They do have creativity, but they are bad at coding. Like, super bad at it.

I still love them myself. The only disappointment for me was Fallout 76. I loved Skyrim and Fallout 4. Very hyped for Starfield and Elder Scrolls VI.

@luxuryheart:

Oh yes, definitely. I remember wondering why the Hell original Skyrim was CTDing so much, taking an age and half to load my saves, and showing a myriad of weird glitches. So I took a look at the Creation Kit and looked around the modder forums.

Oof. Let's just say the worst part is not the aging engine they're using, but what they've done with it. Skyrim is riddled with incompetence and oversights under the hood.

I don't like Bethesda games. So all those scores don't prevent them from being a 2/10 for me and that is really all that matters is what you think about the games.

Morrowind was great.

I'm not a Playstation fanboy. I have been playing the Elder Scrolls series since the very early 2000s, with Morrowind, Fallout too. Looking at how they've developed things then, and how it's changed over the last few years, it's certainly different. Every new edition of Elder Scrolls or Fallout they significantly dumb down the mechanics, taking away features, flexibility, and customizability the previous titles had.

They also had a lot more unique content then, opting to cut costs, lower their bottom end, and boost their profit margins per title by using a lot of meaningless cut and paste content to act as filler. For example, the actual storyline in Skyrim or Fallout IV can be completed in a couple hours so they fill it up with randomly generated "this settlement needs your help, I'll mark it on your map" garbage to keep you distracted.

I would be absolutely fucking godsmacked if Elder Scrolls 6 doesn't have fewer customizability than even Skyrim's limited options. And stunned if there isn't a lot of random "this settlement is under attack" bullshit thrown in to hide the fact we'll have even less content that requires actually script/story writing.

Bethesda developed Fallout 4. The game sucked.
Bethesda developed Fallout 76. It sucked even more.
Bethesda develops Starfield, which we've seen nothing from. Probably because it sucks.
The next Elder Scrolls is still using the Morrowind engine, because "our employees don't know anything else". That sucks.

Those other games you listed, like DOOM, are not made by Bethesda.

I don't know man. Signs point to Bethesda sucking all sorts of ass right now and has some serious redeeming to do.

Nah, always been crap. The games listed are not all developed, but published. The hate comes from them as a developer, thread is crap.

When did it stop?

Elder Scrolls and The Fallout series is better then anything that Sony has ever done. That is why the Sony fanboys are crying.

Xbox's next big game from Bethesda, Starfield

Sony fans are looking forward to the sequel to this tranny sex scene sim game

Good point.

@silentchief: just had to comment on your horizon has better side quests than FC crap! Playing horizon atm on pc and think it’s good, but almost all of the side quests are utter generic crap...even more so compared to the epicness that is the hillarious fun, interesting and varied side quests you find in farcry!!

TC, why you so mean to the bovine brigade, causing mountains of salt?

Lol :P

3RD placestation

hah

@djoffer123: as a big HZD fan I have to agree - the side quests are almost all utter crap with cringey dialogue. The main story, and really just fighting robot dinosaurs in epic battles, are where it's at.

What? You are mentioning things I didn't but I'll address your points.

I never said anything about the judge or map markers. I play AC in exploration mode with all of the unnecessary stuff turned off so it's not an issue to me.

The wind effect in Tsushima is great for me since I hate being guided, which is also why I turn off icons in AC

By polish I meant bugs and things working as intended, you are talking about gameplay related things that I never mentioned. Animations areiles better in Tsushima. Newer AC games have terrible animations, Syndicate was the Last game with smooth animations and transitions.

I would argue the stories of Origins and Odyssey had better stories. Tsushima is about on par with Valhalla with the whole recruiting allies mechanic with Tsushima being easier to follow.

Why don't you just ask Jim Sterling about what he thinks of Bethesda?

The Outer Worlds was better than Fallout 4 or Fallout 76

Bethesda will seriously have to update its engine to make ES6 worthy of being the Gamepass exclusive it will almost certainly be.

Starfield will lay down a marker to see if Bethesda can make a next generation game.

But the gaming community at large will be more interested in GTA6 than ES6.

Yes, we know cows can be very hypocritical. Always have been.

Which is weird, I saw the trailers for Returnal and was meh about the game, still am. If people are having fun with it, that's pretty awesome that they finally have a new game to play. I'll keep plying through OG Spiderman until something cool comes out that's worth 60-70. I am looking forward to playing the PSPlus version.

Reading these comments...

Let me lick those tears, cows.

No one:

Not a single soul:

Lems: "BETHESDA IS THE BEST DEV WHY ARE YOU SAYING THEY'RE NOT YOU'RE SO SALTY"

^^

I have a feeling The Cows are going to be real Salty this gen. 🤣