One thing you can say about Bethesda’s RPG titles – they’re games that have such a strong fanbase that the titles last for a long time.
To this day, “Skyrim” and other “Elder Scrolls” titles have a thriving community of fans, modders and others who can’t get enough of that world well over a decade after they came out. The same goes for third and fourth “Fallout” titles (“Fallout 76″… not so much).
The release of the sci-fi RPG title “Starfield” a few weeks ago has been a success for Xbox and Bethesda with its publisher claiming the title had reached 10 million players in its first two weeks, making it “the biggest launch in Bethesda history”.
Speaking in a Game Maker’s Notebook interview, Bethesda game director Todd Howard discussed the company’s planned lifespan for the title:
“This is a game that’s intentionally made to be played for a long time. One of the things we’ve learned from our previous games, like Skyrim, like Fallout, is that people want to play them for a very long time.
How do we build it such that it is allowing that in a way that feels natural, and if people have played the game and finished the main quest, you can see that.
The one thing I have noticed is, that because more games are played for a long time… the ability to update them over time creates games that people are playing right now that have been around for a long time, gotten years of updates, and that creates an expectation.”
The game has been well received thus far, recognised as one of the best titles of the year though will likely play second fiddle to the inevitable “Baldur’s Gate III” vs. “The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom” showdown for the Game of the Year award.
