Bethesda is Dead

[NotDiscoDragonInAWig]

A Cathardic Thread for unleashing your HATE for the once "Beloved" game studio we've all come to HATE I'll start:

 

The amount of betrayal l as a (Former) Bethesda fan have encountered since the piece of shit Fucking game known as Starfailed came out is astonishing. I have repeatedly defended that game several times over not just on here but on Reddit, YouTube, and modding Discord.

Months after months and now a year after year, I've watched that game slowly and painfully because of Bethesda's complete and utter incompetence and now they've broken Fallout 4! Completely and utterly unacceptable until Fallout 4 anniversary edition I had hope for Starfield's next DLC but now I see that was misplaced not a single employee in Bethesda deserves to be employed in the game industry ever again especially that sorry excuse for a "writer" "Emil PLAGilero" I now genuinely want Bethesda to be shut down and every "dev" to be fired and blackballed from the gaming industry especially Emil's below human intelligence ass i'm not even watching Fallout season 2 because I genuinely want anything Bethesda does going forward to fail 

[Sandatharius]

You should edit the color of the black-on-black text....very hard to read.

Since Bethesda is under the umbrella of Microsoft now, it's likely they had little control over decisions being made. I bought Starfield, and never in my life was I more disappointed in a game. Unfortunately, I bought it from Green Man Gaming and they refused to refund my money....even though it had been less than 12 hours since I made the purchase. I subsequently severed my account with them. I had probably bought some 12 games with them. Shows how much they valued customers. Still have high hopes for ES6. We'll see.

[ghostwalkr]

You seriously need to sit the KB and mouse down, turn off your computer and go outside if you're demanding that people be fired and lose their jobs because you're are upset of the state of a video game.

 

[SirDuke]

I was very disappointed with Starfield, too.

I think all at Bethesda should wash their mouths with sharp vinegar, for bragging and bloating about this "average" game.

Because the only thing, that really makes me furious, are those big mouths and swanky words.
(mAyBe YoU ShOuLd UpGrAde yoUR PC tO PlaY OuR gAmE)

Nevertheless, I played the game "for a while" and had fun out of it.
  compared to 


I kinda bite my own ass, that I pre-ordered and paid like 70$
Should have waited, and paid no more then 49$

But besides that, it's a "mediocre" good game.
One of very few in that genre.

There are not many games, similar to "Bethesda games".
With loot hoarding, exploring and a good amount of modding ability.

If you disagree, just gimme TWO different examples.

I'd genuinely wanna know and play those.

Edited January 10 by SirDuke

[Raven 54]

On 1/10/2026 at 6:41 AM, NotDiscoDragonInAWig said:

not a single employee in Bethesda deserves to be employed in the game industry ever again especially that sorry excuse for a "writer" "Emil PLAGilero" I now genuinely want Bethesda to be shut down and every "dev" to be fired and blackballed from the gaming industry

Sit down... Breathe the Air... let the calm be upon you.    

To say the game  coders and development team should be eradicated for following the director is unacceptable, seems like you have some deeper issues than just the games mentioned, be constructive in your criticism, don't just blindly vent rage without sentence structure and thought points you would like to get out.

Vent by all means just step up your game so it looks and reads better.

Calm be with you. 

[South8028]

Well, they didn't "ruin" FO4 recently; they've been constantly ruining the game with every update. There have been about a dozen updates already, and each one has provoked outcry from the community. But... Nothing prevents you from using the "canonical" 1.10.162. It just requires some extra work, but it's not impossible. 

[landess]

They offered us candy, then decided to use our interest against us through a constant advancement of actions which defeats the goodwill of those whom helped make them as popular as they became.

 

With a downgraded version of Fallout 4 safely archived on my PC - I really have no use for Bethesda anymore.

 

 

[steelpanther24]

On 1/10/2026 at 9:29 AM, ghostwalkr said:

You seriously need to sit the KB and mouse down, turn off your computer and go outside if you're demanding that people be fired and lose their jobs because you're are upset of the state of a video game.

 

 

7 hours ago, Caveman 74 said:

Sit down... Breathe the Air... let the calm be upon you.    

To say the game  coders and development team should be eradicated for following the director is unacceptable, seems like you have some deeper issues than just the games mentioned, be constructive in your criticism, don't just blindly vent rage without sentence structure and thought points you would like to get out.

Vent by all means just step up your game so it looks and reads better.

Calm be with you. 

 

To be fair, the OP did say this is a cathartic thread and if NotDisco really meant that the people of BSG needed to lose their jobs, then I agree with both your replies.  

 

What is interesting is the number of jobs open within BSG:

https://jobs.zenimax.com/jobs?department=&located=&location=9

 

and that their starting pay is .......well.......here is what we start our STEM people at: $79,735-$108,975

 

while at BGS:

"Senior External Producer - The typical base pay range for this position at the start of employment is expected to be between $95,000 - $215,000 per year."

https://careers-zenimax.icims.com/jobs/3439/senior-external-producer/job?mobile=false&width=1488&height=500&bga=true&needsRedirect=false&jan1offset=-300&jun1offset=-240

 

That said, the bonuses might make up the rather light base pay.  Is building computer games a desired job now a days?  With Microsoft owning the shop, there isn't any chance that the individuals behind a great game title will achieve super stardom,  It would be like hiring people who don't know anything about Lord of the Rings to be show runners for a new series in Middle Earth....oh wait.......

 

[Count Chocula]

Definition of the worst game company ever: the one that makes whatever game I am playing.

 

People love to talk about how game companies like Bioware and Bethesda, for example, were all about the love of gaming and gamers. And the big new corporate owners are all about cash grabs. It was always all about "cash grabs." The people who started Bioware and Bethesda started those companies to make money and to eventually sell out to bigger companies like EA and Microsoft so they could become billionaires. They didn't start them to be not-for-profit social justice orgs.

[kziitd]

In today's gaming industry, not progressing is almost equivalent to falling behind.
If you've played both Cyberpunk 2077 and Starfield, you'd probably think that Cyberpunk 2077 was released a few years after Starfield, not the other way around.
Bethesda's production quality has remained at the level of 2011, except for the slight improvement in visuals brought about by the Creation Engine 2.
Sometimes, if you can't imagine it, you certainly can't achieve it.
Everything Bethesda does now still follows the production philosophy of the Skyrim era.

[Evi1Panda]

On 1/10/2026 at 3:41 PM, NotDiscoDragonInAWig said:

A Cathardic Thread for unleashing your HATE for the once "Beloved" game studio we've all come to HATE I'll start:

 

The amount of betrayal l as a (Former) Bethesda fan have encountered since the piece of shit Fucking game known as Starfailed came out is astonishing. I have repeatedly defended that game several times over not just on here but on Reddit, YouTube, and modding Discord.

Months after months and now a year after year, I've watched that game slowly and painfully because of Bethesda's complete and utter incompetence and now they've broken Fallout 4! Completely and utterly unacceptable until Fallout 4 anniversary edition I had hope for Starfield's next DLC but now I see that was misplaced not a single employee in Bethesda deserves to be employed in the game industry ever again especially that sorry excuse for a "writer" "Emil PLAGilero" I now genuinely want Bethesda to be shut down and every "dev" to be fired and blackballed from the gaming industry especially Emil's below human intelligence ass i'm not even watching Fallout season 2 because I genuinely want anything Bethesda does going forward to fail 

Don't do something just to spite someone else; do what you want and what you like. If you want to watch a TV series, watch it. If you don't want to play Starfield, don't play it.

There's a Russian saying: 'To spite my grandmother, I'll freeze my ears off.' I'm not sure how clear that is, but the idea is that you intend to hurt your grandmother (by refusing to wear a hat in winter), but in reality, you're only hurting yourself.

[Evi1Panda]

@kziitd 

Regarding Cyberpunk 2077, I'd like to share my opinion, as I'm genuinely perplexed why this game has so many fans.

First, about my own experience: I played through the game once back in January, a few years ago, right after launch. Then I tried a different playthrough — and ran into a game-breaking bug that forced me to reload a save from seven hours earlier. I haven't touched CP since.

But my issues with CP aren't about the bugs — any complex project has those. My complaint is that CP doesn't offer anything new:

• A scripted, lifeless world with GTA-style activities. The world only springs to life when you step into a designated trigger zone. Outside of those, it feels empty, populated by puppets mimicking NPCs (yes, not even real characters, just NPCs).
• Only handcrafted content is interesting. You'll never encounter an unexpected, emergent situation in this world. Everything interesting has been pre-scripted and staged.
• An illusion of choice in missions instead of genuine approaches (stealth/dialogue/assault).

We've seen all of this before in the good old GTA 3 and every GTA that followed.

 

That's why Todd's games (can't speak for Starfield) are much more appealing to me — they actually simulate a living world, rather than simulating a simulation of a living world, which is what games like GTA, The Witcher 3, and CP2077 do.

 

As for the cyberpunk aesthetic, my personal benchmark is Deus Ex: Mankind Divided. Its gameplay is incredibly horizontally expansive, yet for some reason it remains hugely underrated. Maybe because it didn't have Keanu Reeves promoting it.

 

upd:

In CP's open world, the space between objectives feels completely dead. You never feel compelled to explore the path from trigger A to trigger B, knowing it's just empty filler.

Compare that to exploring Boston in Fallout 4: there's a sense of curiosity, a reason to peek behind every door because it could hide a piece of lore, a unique item, or a untold story.

Edited January 13 by Evi1Panda

[NotDiscoDragonInAWig]

On 1/10/2026 at 8:29 AM, ghostwalkr said:

You seriously need to sit the KB and mouse down, turn off your computer and go outside if you're demanding that people be fired and lose their jobs because you're are upset of the state of a video game.

 

 

On 1/11/2026 at 8:45 AM, Caveman 74 said:

Sit down... Breathe the Air... let the calm be upon you.    

To say the game  coders and development team should be eradicated for following the director is unacceptable, seems like you have some deeper issues than just the games mentioned, be constructive in your criticism, don't just blindly vent rage without sentence structure and thought points you would like to get out.

Vent by all means just step up your game so it looks and reads better.

Calm be with you. 

 

sadly, I do mean it. Either make games with passion or get out of the industry

[Raven 54]

9 hours ago, NotDiscoDragonInAWig said:

sadly, I do mean it. Either make games with passion or get out of the industry

Just throw the baby out with the bathwater then!

I guess you are passionate about the job you hold too, must be nice for you, guess your the boss as well so no other is telling you what should be done, how to fulfill the parameters of the current project.

Passion is snuffed out quickly as it is linked to free thinking, radical, not a team player, squash that as fast as possible.

Homogenize           

Edited January 16 by Caveman 74

[Count Chocula]

On 1/15/2026 at 1:40 PM, NotDiscoDragonInAWig said:

 

 

sadly, I do mean it. Either make games with passion or get out of the industry

Yet you no doubt still buy "passionless" games. I mean, you are posting this in a forum thread that's about Fallout 4.

[Jyratx]

Okay, I'll bite. Mind you, this is a roast; I'm not consumed by anger and I do have a life outside of this which requires me to go outside to touch grass from time to time... I'm a married man, after all. So if any of you want to come at me with your pseudo-therapist-robot speak and you're unable to present your degree and license in said field, I'll politely ask you to fornicate with the business side of a rusty circular saw blade.

 

Morrowind: god slayer tier.

Fallout New Vegas: wasn't made by Bethesda. Also god slayer tier.

Oblivion: dumbed down Morrowind, but still relatively innovative. Mods make it more fun. Horrible dialogue (mind you, this is not me dissing the voice actors/actresses; what they did was quite the achievement) and eldritch abominations for characters and NPC's... they all look and sound the same. Even Morrowind's pixelated character/NPC presets had more personality to them. OP magicka gameplay that beats the left click/right click "combat", but most people don't know. C tier.

Fallout 3: Go find your daddy Liam Neeson who's trying to save the wasteland. People thought it was awesome; I thought it was boring. The BoS vs the Enclave... hmmm, where have we seen that before? D tier.

Fallout 4: Go and find your middle aged beta son who's trying to "save" the wasteland. Boring and also sucked in all directions, from the "writing" to the environment. Great shooter; terrible RPG. Regret buying it; probably won't play it again. The garbage can with my wife's used tampons tier.

Skyrim: dumbed down Oblivion. Interesting at first until one realizes how dumbed down everything is. Great ambience, and with certain mods, one can enjoy gathering alchemy ingredients or smithing materials without being randomly attacked by the flying wyvern buzzkills. Combat? What combat? Just left click/right click again, only now with holding! And all of the cool mechanics of previous games have been ripped out because "streamlining". See, fellas? That's what innovation looks like (/s)! D tier vanilla, potentially B with mods.

Starfield: Skyrim in space but gay and boring, and won't ever be purchased by yours truly even if, like, the best gooner mods to ever exist are made for it (the probability of which becomes less and less likely; I'd peg the odds at sub million %). Meth addicted rats with herpes tier. 

Todd Howard: Todd the Toady.

Emil Provolone Cheese: he sucks at writing, but thinks he's the shiz at it. Can't stand criticism of his inferior writing skills that are enormously eclipsed by... any internet fanfic writer ever. 

Microsoft: Windows 11?  Nah. But here's deez nutz.

 

[Miauzi]

Much has already been written about the absurdity of "Bugdesta", and I have already made posts about it in numerous threads here in the forum.

 

But: "Der Fisch beginnt vom Kopf her zu stinken"(German proverb) -> programmers can only implement what they are told... this includes both the given story and the "engine" (for which they are developing the game)

 

More than enough has already been said about the engine – but the stories in their games aren't just awful – they also disregard the lore of their respective game universes in both series (TES and Fallout)!

-

With a bad story, you can perhaps mask it with graphics or other "glitz" – at least for a single playthrough... but when the "common thread of the lore" is ignored in a series... then it's no longer a "series" but rather "individual games" from different universes, and then the plot holes become even more glaring.

-

The Fallout series was originally developed by other studios, and several successful games were released... and yes – it's about saving the post-apocalyptic wasteland. The dark humor is what makes such a story playable in the first place – precisely because this humor forces you to question yourself!

And if this humor is increasingly lost (especially in "Fallout 4"), then it becomes essential to score points with other things for a good game... but that's precisely where it falls short – because even large parts of the "lore" are ignored.

But these are management decisions, not those of the "lower-level" staff!

 

While the Elder Scrolls series was developed in-house, and thus the "lore" of this universe was created, it seems that for the last 15 years, no one in Bugdesta's leadership has understood how it all works.

 

This has become particularly clear to me in the last two months, when I posted my own "isekai" story for Skyrim in a dedicated fanfiction forum... and also wrote reviews for other authors' stories.

One story focuses on Miraak, giving him a significantly more detailed backstory—one that makes sense to me as a long-time player. But what's even more interesting is: What role does the "World-Eater" Alduin actually play in this universe?

And then terms like "calpa" (cycle) appear—why do you think some NPCs speak of the NECESSARY end of the world?

And then there are terms like "calpa" (cycle)—why do you think some NPCs speak of the NECESSARY end of the world? -

Over time, something emerged from the discussion between the story writer and me:

This TES universe is inherently "unstable" due to its very creation—meaning that the boundaries between Mundus and the Void, with its Oblivion planes, will dissolve after a certain time... not even all the gods together can prevent this!

The only solution is essentially a "forced system reset"—so that a new cycle can begin with orderly starting conditions.

Who triggers this "reset"? That's right—Alduin was "created" for this purpose—it's his sole function!

And what is our main objective in the game? -> We destroy the possibility of an orderly "transition" to a new cycle.

 

To avoid any misunderstanding – everything within Aetherius, except for the gods, will be destroyed – Mundus and everything on it is GONE.

The only way something can "survive" from Mundus is if it reaches Aetherius itself before the "reset" – as a god. So, a mortal must undergo apotheosis (becoming a god), like Talos or Vivec. Talos is already safe, but not Vivec.

-

The "reset" also affects the Oblivion planes – they will be erased except for their master, the Daedric Princes. They will have to start from scratch, but at least they retain their memories.

-

A brief foray into the background of this game universe... of which the player knows virtually nothing and is unaware... yet there are several ways to explain it to them and create a truly epic main storyline.

 

This is a brief look at the background of this game universe... of which the player knows virtually nothing and experiences nothing... yet there are several ways to "explain" it to them and thereby create a truly epic main story.

 

Therefore, another TES installment makes very little sense – at least not one set in a non-existent future... because either this future doesn't exist at all (because this cosmos has collapsed and remains in disordered chaos)... or one starts in the early stages of a new cycle – that is, in a new "mystical" age.

 

Setting TES-6 in the timeline before Morrowind makes no sense after TES Online... but then again, what's the point of "bugdesta's" management decisions?

 

And the occupation of the capital city in Cyrodiil by "Molag Bal" and its siege by the "God of Order" is already covered by an epic mod for Skyrim... as is, incidentally, what's behind the "calpa"!

[ANGRYWOLVERINE]

On 1/10/2026 at 8:37 AM, Sandatharius said:

You should edit the color of the black-on-black text....very hard to read.

Since Bethesda is under the umbrella of Microsoft now, it's likely they had little control over decisions being made. I bought Starfield, and never in my life was I more disappointed in a game. Unfortunately, I bought it from Green Man Gaming and they refused to refund my money....even though it had been less than 12 hours since I made the purchase. I subsequently severed my account with them. I had probably bought some 12 games with them. Shows how much they valued customers. Still have high hopes for ES6. We'll see.

MS has a hands off approach esp it seems when it comes to Todd . After the Kuhlman interview I have little hope that ESVI will be any good.

[ANGRYWOLVERINE]

The leader of Team Folon Fallout London was interviewed and he said it would be best for Bethesda to sell off its IPs.

[Lind L Tailor]

On 1/21/2026 at 9:01 PM, ANGRYWOLVERINE said:

The leader of Team Folon Fallout London was interviewed and he said it would be best for Bethesda to sell off its IPs.

To who exactly? I'm not a Bethesda fan that buys every single thing they drop but i respect them enough to know that as mediocre to downright incompetent they are, they atleast 'seem' passionate/respectful about their games and IPs.

 

Just look at Ubisoft, EA, Blizzard, Bioware, etc.

Ubisoft is on track to either completely die off or just become another cog in the Tencent machine, they couldn't keep their profitable IPs alive (AC and Tom Clancy), let alone, the "fan favorites" like Prince of Persia, Beyond Good and Evil, FarCry, Rabbids, etc.

EA is already a cog in the Saudi machine and just look at the state of their games. BF6 is half-bots nearly every match you go into, Sims 4 is essentially dead and still overpriced, Skate is there i guess and Apex is a shell of its former peak.

Blizzard has done nothing with its IPs except release a pathetic excuse of an update/sequel to Overwatch, whatever WoW expansion they drop that only veterans and tryhards will play while WoW Classic is carrying the name, Diablo IV's base game was so bad it killed any hype or good-favor the game had and even if the newer seasons have had good things, not everyone is keen on giving it a shot. Starcraft is just completely dead and the news of the new game being an FPS is just hilarious.

 

I would rather Bethesda keep the reigns to their IPs than whatever the fuck it is that other studios are doing.

[Count Chocula]

On 1/25/2026 at 10:17 AM, Lind L Tailor said:

To who exactly?

Excellent point. Any entity that could afford to pay what Microsoft would want for Bethesda's IPs wouldn't be any better than Microsoft. Assuming that FOLON developer quote is accurate, is there more? Did they perhaps say who they thought would do a better job of it than Microsoft? If not, then the statement is just part of a wish list.

[South8028]

Rather, the game industry is dying. AI and generation will kill everything. For simple reasons. Because when it's easy for you to create game assets, you don't have to try. You don't have to meticulously work on 3D models, textures, or think through defects and story.Many people who have worked in film or game development for decades are leaving because they understand that in a couple of years they will be completely irrelevant.In 20 years, there won't be 3D. It'll just be auto-generation from wireframe data. And no one needs carefully planned plots either. More superhero-esque stupidity and bright, vibrant colors.🙂

[Count Chocula]

3 hours ago, South8028 said:

And no one needs carefully planned plots either. More superhero-esque stupidity and bright, vibrant colors.🙂

"Superhero-esque stupidity" is what gamers as a group have always wanted. AI has nothing to do with that, neither one way or the other.

[South8028]

On 2/10/2026 at 3:07 AM, Count Chocula said:

"Superhero-esque stupidity" is what gamers as a group have always wanted. AI has nothing to do with that, neither one way or the other.

I doubt people "want" anything. People want what trends nurture them with. We see that in the 60s, people wanted detectives and intelligence agents with cigarettes in their mouths. In the 80s, they enjoyed the contradictions of time loops and the physical paradoxes of special relativity. In the 90s, they enjoyed drug addiction and the hidden reality of matrices.

[nufndash]

Sorry for going off topic for a minute, but I just wanted to give Bethesda a little credit for whatever involvement, if any, they had with Fallout, the series. I thought it was actually pretty good.  I tried and tried to like Starfield, but after 8 hours, I deleted it to make more room on my pc. With that being said, if Bethesda did have their fingers on Fallout the series, I guess I can officially get ready for season 3, a re-release of season 2, but with a little better graphics and a scene where Lucy goes fishing.