Most of the discussions around Bethesda right now are focused on one title pretty much exclusively – “Fallout 4” – and people have accepted the fact that they aren’t getting a new installment in the “Elder Scrolls” series anytime soon. And yet, it’s obvious that there is still a lot of interest in those games and many people would love to see Bethesda at least confirm that the new game is indeed in production. But for now, all we have are rumors and speculation, and there is plenty of both.
When it comes to “The Elder Scrolls 6”, people are mostly talking about how the new game could move the franchise forward and evolve some of its core gameplay elements even further. There are various things that the series does well, but it also has some issues which people have been asking Bethesda to address for a long time now.
The gameplay is still not perfect as a whole, and even though the formula has been getting better, a lot can still be done. And on the other hand, the game has been moving in some rather strange directions in its development as well, as some of the changes that were introduced with the latest installment – Skyrim – were taken less than favorably by the community. Some players even questioned the overall design direction of Bethesda, claiming that the studio is taking the wrong approach with regards to solving some particular problems.
In any case, fans seem to want more complexity from the next game. In other words, many people have been getting tired of the trend of constantly making quests easier and more accessible, and it’s true that Bethesda have killed a lot of the exploration in this part of the game. Solving a quest used to be like a mini puzzle where the player had to read and explore, and now it mostly boils down to following an arrow on the compass.
Combat is also something which many players want to see improved. The games have been getting more and more advanced with each installment, with prettier graphics and a more solid physics engine, and yet combat still feels clunky and unoptimized. For the most part, it boils down to having better stats than the enemy and that’s about it.
And then we have games like “Dark Messiah of Might & Magic” which is pretty much the most commonly mentioned first-person fantasy game when people are talking about properly implemented combat mechanics. This title is still being discussed in this context and many people want to see a sequel to it, although they’ve just been left with their hopeful talks. Meanwhile, many have been asking Bethesda to seriously reevaluate their approach to the combat in “The Elder Scrolls” and come up with a more unique system that relies more heavily on player skill instead of letting players solve everything by amassing better stats and levelling up their gear.
Last but not least, players want to see more stability and better polish from the game. It’s no secret that Bethesda have a habit of releasing their games in a somewhat unfinished state, relying on their community to fix major issues through unofficial patches. And while this has generally worked for them, some are afraid that it might be becoming a trend that Bethesda are perfectly content with, and that’s something that many players don’t like as an idea.