The Decline of Bethesda Softworks

I'm on my soapbox. Cover your ears.

Now, I'm not strictly a player of RPGs. Though role play games are my preferred genre I'm not above occasionally taking on an FPS campaign for the sake of shooting the bejeezus out of cookie-cutter enemies who toss around obscenities at any given opportunity. It gets the adrenaline pumping, and since there haven't been many good RPG releases recently (She waits eagerly for Dragon Age: Origins) I pretty much have to settle on some shoot-em-ups for my entertainment.

I would guess that my strafing into shooters is the root of my tolerance for Bethesda Softworks games. It's like the last few major titles they've put out are all having the exact same major identity crisis and aren't sure if they want to pump up on testosterone, haul around big guns and be an FPS, or flaunt about with NPCs like a Chatty Cathy as an RPG. The end result is an odd composite of a grossly-muscled shooter with no neck wearing a pink sundress and trying to masquerade itself as a role play game. Bethesda games can't measure up to FEAR or Half-Life 2 in terms of pulse-pounding killkillkill action, but God knows they aren't RPGs.

In my OCD pursuit of finishing up Xbox Live achievements I tossed is TES4: Oblivion for a second go. I got a little sidetracked from my purpose with the Shivering Isles expansion, and during this lengthy foray I received a message from one of my Xbox buddies. It eloquently stated:

Aside from Shivering Isles I would wholeheartedly agree with this assessment. So the question becomes "Why?"

I've been running through Fallout 3, and while I know that it's the selling point of the sandbox games they produce, I'm stricken with suspicion that Bethesda can't find the happy medium between "questing freedom" and "complete ADD". It's great to see games that aren't oppressively linear, but when it comes to storytelling I can't be convinced that Bethesda has a clue about what they're doing. Or realistically, that they even care anymore: pretty graphics will sell games whether a story is present or not. Case in point: Oblivion.

Oblivion's main quest was direly weak and full of errand running and mindless combat. It felt more like doing chores than anything else, and with no emotional connection to any of the NPCs or the kingdom you had to wonder what would happen if you just let the hordes of hell pour into the realm and massacre everyone. Because that would probably be more entertaining. But if the bad writing and lifeless NPCs didn't make the main plot hard enough to grind through the constant distractions sure did: whenever you were on your way to complete a primary objective you'd find yourself bombarded with ten smaller quests than require your immediate attention, Oh Hero of the Empire. Seriously. Isn't there a Fighters Guild in every major city? Get them to go find your lost heirloom; I'm busy.

Fallout's composition doesn't seem to be much better. Advancing through the main quest almost gets you started on side quests which require the player to completely drop what they're doing and run over to that side of the map to blah blah blah that has no relevance to anything significant at all. About two hours later you get through with picking up the laundry for some two-dimensional ingrate and return to where you were before the pointless diversion, trying to remember what the heck is going on.

On my way to the Washington Monument to implement Three Dog's new radio dish I was mauled to the point where I had to duck into Underworld. While recovering in the clinic I came across an unconscious Riley and, being a medic, felt compelled to revive her. I thought she'd just be grateful and give me a few caps. Instead I'm launched on an epic adventure to go to her team's headquarters, take whatever ammo I find, then trek across the warzone to find her missing men who are in apparently critical danger. Along the way to them come across a note that pertains to an entirely different quest for an NPC I met about five hours before. So I save Riley's men, rush to meet them at their headquarters for my reward, take the note I found earlier to Underworld (where Sydney is supposed to be but for some reason she still hasn't left Rivet City), go to Rivet, finish that quest, escort Sydney back to Underworld so she doesn't get killed along the way, and then BREATHE. ...But wait. Wasn't I supposed to be doing something?

Oh, that's right. Three Dog's dish.

This kills the pacing of the main story - what story value there is to Oblivion and Fallout 3. All the NPCs tell you how urgent the situation is - Gates to hell are opening everywhere! An evil god is building a juggernaut to destroy the outlanders! Your father has fled and you have to find him! We're all doomed without you! - but nobody seems to mind if I go poking around in some Podunk, backwater settlement and twiddle my thumbs for months on end. I could have easily waited a week before going after Riley's men and they would have been fine. In Oblivion you can wait a year before taking the Amulet of Kings to Jauffre: sure, an evil god is trying to get into the realm, but he'll patiently wait for you to get around to putting up a feasible resistance first.

My experience is that there's a similar problem in reverse. In these games you don't want to rush through the main quests because after you finish them there's this sense of "So... Now what?" The big kaboom is over. Disaster averted. Why are we still playing? Morrowind suffered from this to an extent I guess, but at least there was justification: You were Nerevar, and your responsibility was now to run around and protect the people from the lesser-dangers. Besides, TES3 had compelling enough DLC to keep you engaged (I firmly believe Bloodmoon was the best expansion to a game I have ever played). Oblivion didn't manage to do this. I don't think Oblivion even tried. When playing TES4 I always have to put the main quest dead last because I won't play unless I feel like there's still work to be done. I haven't yet finished Fallout so I can't speak on that behalf, but as I understand it things pretty much come to an end as soon as the main event is over.

Okay, so we all pretty much know Bethesda has gone down the tubes in terms of story writing. And as a company in general. What other reasons make their subsequent games so disappointing?

I guess it's only fair to start with TES3: Morrowind because that was where the seed of the tainted tree was planted. I'm reluctant to drag Morrowind into this rant because I adore the game but as players all know TES3 required an absurd amount of tedious travel and/or grunt work to make the slightest bit of progress. And we didn't have the luxury of horses or fast travel, but instead had giant fleas that went only to specific cities. And you had to pay for it each time.

And it was wonderful. Disagree?

A lot of people found the insanity that was Morrowind's mass transit system to be annoying, but I enjoyed plotting my routes to get from Point A to Point B. Take the Strider from Seyda Neen to Balmora, then find the Mages Guild and warp to Sadrith Mora, then swim back to the mainland and find the paths to get to that remote tribe's camp... Sounds like a waste of time, but all the while you're doing this the continent of Morrowind is given depth. There are several different regions that are all different. It made the player want to explore the world if only to see what was out there. And though the main quest was waiting on you, it wasn't stifling because the situation wasn't critical: you had to become the Incarnate through a series of tests and trials (errands). You had to learn about the land you were trying to save.

So where did Oblivion go wrong? In Morrowind you had an entire continent to explore. Cyrodiil consists of the same giant wooded forest with only a little differentiation. Not to mention you could basically fast travel to any major city at will, and upon discovering a landmark you could just whisk yourself back as soon as you'd found it. Where's the intrigue in that?

So far I feel like Fallout 3 has taken a (baby) step in the right direction to fix what Oblivion screwed up. Okay, the landscape is all collectively dirt and rocks as far as the eye can see, but the abandoned buildings are well rendered and in most cases are unique enough to warrant a desire to explore. And yeah, you can fast travel to locations you've found. But the world is in such a state that you want to get out there and hoof it. Well, at least I did: I know of people whom feel differently.

But should we hold our breath that sacrifice chickens in hopes that Bethesda will see the light and realize that pretty games =/= good games? Hell no. I feel that our resident Babylonian summarized it nicely when he recently said:

...Which would be making money. Not making a good RPG. Why would they bother with such an effort when people are so eager to dump money into a game that was merely about graphics? They get paid either way.

I'm truly sorry to see Bethesda decline into a philosophy of "mediocre is acceptable" like so much of the game industry. I feel RPGs are getting hit the hardest as the definition of what makes a good RPG degrades to "Player makes morally ambiguous choices sometimes, but it doesn't have an effect on anything really". Is our genre dying? If more companies take a turn like this it may only be a matter of time.

So here's to you, Bethesda, for selling out. I'll play your games if I can get them cheap, but I'll take BioWare over you any day of the week.