There’s no such thing as a tight ship in a company as mature as Bethesda, particularly not when wrapped inside a geriatric behemoth like Microsoft. Anybody who has worked inside a company of this size knows exactly what it looks like and “efficient” is not the word any of them would use to describe what goes on within their walls. Useless? Yes. Lumbering? Soul-destroying? Shit? You bet. Efficient? No.
These things are not like normal businesses. You end up with something so irrationally large that it would be immoral to let a single person make any decisions, which makes no sense for a creative endeavor.
Imma be honest I don’t expect it to ever come out and if it ever does I expect it to be a soulless cash grab that has to be “fixed” with community mods 5 years after the game comes out to be remotely playable. I’d be happy to be surprised but I wont hold my breath
Either way, less people working on the game is bad. It guarantees mindsets (and longer development time) like yours: apathy.
Well let’s look at its timeline
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Howard confirmed in 2016 they ES6 was going to be made.
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The E3 announcement trailer was in 2018.
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The same year they said it wouldn’t start until after Starfield
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In 2021 Howard said it was in design phase
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2023 they said it entered active development
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2024 they stated early builds were playable
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2025/Today they said it’s the main production focus
10 years between Todd saying it was going to be made and finally being the main production focus. So had they not put their weight behind Starfield its likely ES6 would have already been out or getting very close to release.
The underlying issue here is how Bethesda allocates resources between its titles. They should have created studios entirely for Fallout and one for TES and MAYBE a 3rd for side projects like ESO, F76, and Starfield. Ultimately this is a mix between Phil Spencer and Todd Howards fault. Phil should have stepped in and made the executive decision to branch the studio and Todd should never have allowed the mainline games to become secondary to side projects.
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The ship is functionally already on the sea floor.
