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There’s no doubt that Bethesda has been the titan of the gaming industry for decades. Despite its recent downward spiral, the company is renowned for creating theElder Scrollsfranchise, severalFalloutgames, andStarfield.
These RPGs are known for their large, immersive worlds packed with interesting characters and stories to unravel. Todd Howard and his team don’t mind expanding upon these game worlds with multiple expansions either, since they’re immune to the industry’s DLC curse.
Bethesda is Safe From the Gaming Industry’s DLC Problems
Recently, while chatting withVideoGamer,Skyrim‘s lead designer, Bruce Nesmith, opened up about the game’s development and why it didn’t receive any more than the game’s three expansions despite its incredible success. Instead of developing more DLCs, Bethesda wanted to flex its creative muscles withFallout 4and, later,Starfield.
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While talking about the current state of DLCs, Nesmith noted that they bring a lot of issues for studios. Despite producing major hits, studios believe that DLCs can be a loss-making endeavor due to all the hype behind the game vanishing into thin air after the release. However, that isn’t the case when it comes to Bethesda’s games.
It just takes an awful lot of effort [to make an expansion]. To create the Shivering Isles, that was many, many months. And by that time, who’s playing the game? Well, in the case of Skyrim, everybody. Bethesda games, not uniquely, are in a very, very select company of games that have a long play cycle.
Bethesda isn’t afraid to pump out more DLCsfor its successful games because they boast a long play cycle, keeping a solid and active community for years. The company’s unique approach to crafting RPGs encourages players to explore and replay. Seriously, you can spend hundreds of hours in any Bethesda game diving into main quests and side missions and discovering hidden secrets.
What puts Bethesda in an even better position is the modding community built around its games. It’s been 12 years since the release ofSkyrim, and it still competes with modern-day titles due to the modding community’s constant support in elevating the game to further heights.
By constantly evolving its formula,Bethesdabrings incredible replayability to its games that allow it to support them with worthwhile expansions without having to worry about the game losing its momentum and hype. There will always be gamers ready to hop on a brand-new DLC by the company.
Bethesda Still Needs to Learn from Its Mistakes
It’s great to see that,unlike some developers, Bethesda isn’t afraidto constantly bring expansions to the game. However, it seems like the company has dropped the ball when it comes to DLCs.
Bethesda Needs to Take a Look at 1 Underrated Gem That Set the Benchmark for RPGs Without Having 100 Hours of Gameplay
It’s just been a few weeks since the release of Todd Howard, his team’s latest creation,Shattered SpaceDLC, forStarfield. While the company promised us that it would truly revolutionize the base game, it turned out to be a massive failure.
Immediately after its release,it was review-bombed to oblivion since it didn’t match the expectationsand did not bring anything new to the table.
What’s worrying is that it took Bethesda over one year to craftShattered Space, which is quite bizarre considering the company previously gave us some incredible DLCs in way less time.
With how the company has handledStarfieldand its DLCs, players feel likeThe Elder Scrolls 6might prove to be a failure, which will be a disaster for Bethesda. It’s high time for the company to realize its mistakes; otherwise, it wouldn’t be long until itends like Firewalk Studios afterConcord.
With that, do you think Bethesda games offer good replayability? Let us know in the comments below.
Dhruv Bhatnagar
Articles Published :1195
With over 4 years of experience in content writing and more than 1,000 articles published for FandomWire, Dhruv is a seasoned writer when it comes to the gaming space. He’s deeply passionate about titles such as GTA Online, Forza Horizon, and Pokémon Go, committed to bringing readers deep dives and latest updates.
