As Bethesda’s newest IP, Starfield could have launched to a better reception coming from such a storied developer. Touted as the third pillar of the studio’s titanic IP library of Fallout and The Elder Scrolls, its failure to get off the ground has dampened a lot of the talk around sequels for the game. One of the things Starfield had left on the table after the shaky release was its teased Shattered Space expansion, but after it failed to move the needle and received very middling reviews, Bethesda has been far quieter about the game’s future content. Now that another DLC expansion has been delayed, it spells very bad news for the game, but it also spells bad news for The Elder Scrolls 6.
These two games, while not alike in many ways, could depend on one another. One way that Bethesda’s seeming pivot away from Starfield has been taken is that the studio must surely now be focused on The Elder Scrolls 6. While this could be true, as The Elder Scrolls has historically been one of the studio’s biggest moneymakers, it cannot guarantee that the game will be any better for it. Game development is rarely as simple as seamlessly switching projects to make one better than another, and with questions surrounding the capacity for Bethesda leadership to deliver a satisfactory new TES game swirling, this move could indicate a very bad trend for the company.
Abandoning Starfield Won’t Make the Elder Scrolls 6 Come Sooner or Be Better
Game development has always been a very messy thing. Oftentimes, it is more art than science, and while Activision can have three studios work on the Call of Duty series in a predictable fashion, it doesn’t mean that hiccups and delays don’t occur. Bethesda is perhaps even further on the art side of the spectrum, spending long periods focused on one product, with large gaps in its release schedule as its various teams wind down from one IP and spin up for the next. Famously, it has been almost 14 years since the latest TES entry, Skyrim, was released, and Todd Howard himself has mentioned that it was not his intention to leave the series behind for such a long time.
Starfield’s Development Delayed the Elder Scrolls 6
One of the biggest reasons for The Elder Scrolls 6 taking so long is Starfield. With Bethesda trademarking the name Starfield as early as 2013, and full production beginning after Fallout 4, the studio spent almost a decade dedicating the lion’s share of resources to the game, and obviously, this came at the expense of TES 6. Without Starfield, TES 6 could probably have been released around 2023, and some fans have bemoaned this fact quite a lot. It is impossible to deny the IP’s effect on Bethesda’s release cycle, but while Starfield’s support looks to be slowing down, it probably won’t have the effect many TES fans want.
Abandoning Support for Games Early Has Rarely Made Successors Better
An example of this is the failure of Dawn of War 3 - Relic’s third 40K RTS was received so terribly, the studio dropped all plans for expansions, but it did not make any of its follow-up games come out any sooner, or any more polished for it. Company of Heroes 3, which was DoW 3’s most closely related successor, was plagued with balance and performance issues, and despite releasing in March 2023, only this month has its average player count risen above CoH 2.
By leaving Starfield behind, or with a much-reduced team to handle it, Bethesda has indicated a readiness to move on, and this should be pretty alarming, as Todd Howard has described Starfield as his dream project. If the studio can leave its creative lead’s dream project behind so quickly, it can drop support for anything, including TES 6. If TES 6 fails to do the numbers that Bethesda wants, it might similarly abandon it in the future. But even if that doesn’t happen, it sets a bad precedent and doesn’t materially improve follow-up projects, leaving TES 6 on some shaky ground.
Starfield
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OpenCritic Reviews
- Top Critic Avg: 85 /100 Critics Rec: 83%
WHERE TO PLAY
Starfield is the first new universe in 25 years from Bethesda Game Studios, the award-winning creators of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and Fallout 4. In this next generation role-playing game set amongst the stars, create any character you want and explore with unparalleled freedom as you embark on an epic journey to answer humanity’s greatest mystery.
The year is 2330. Humanity has ventured beyond our solar system, settling new planets, and living as a spacefaring people. From humble beginnings as a space miner, you will join Constellation – the last group of space explorers seeking rare artifacts throughout the galaxy – and navigate the vast expanse of the Settled Systems in Bethesda Game Studios’ biggest and most ambitious game.
