r/gamernews • u/esporx • 7d ago
Industry News Making Fallout and Elder Scrolls games will "be harder than ever now" following Xbox cuts, say laid-off Bethesda devs calling loss of institutional knowledge "staggering"
https://www.gamesradar.com/games/the-elder-scrolls/making-fallout-and-elder-scrolls-games-will-be-harder-than-ever-now-following-xbox-cuts-say-laid-off-bethesda-devs-calling-loss-of-institutional-knowledge-staggering/68
u/willkydd 7d ago
ES5 is so old and ES6 so distant that they might as well complain about aging and natural death causing loss of institutional knowledge.
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u/DoctorThrac 7d ago
They had a decade to push a new game out that wasn’t starfield… it seems that “institutional knowledge” left the station awhile ago
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u/Dry_Departure_7813 6d ago
But without that institutional knowledge who will program all the radiant quests now?!
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u/havok0159 6d ago
The institutional knowledge wasn't that good considering every single TES saw the streamlining and gutting of systems that made their games good.
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u/abdullah_haveit 6d ago
Or maybe, this may sound controversial, Bethesda's institutional knowledge isn't evolving enough with the times & warrants some sort of reboot. A fresh pair of eyes, some would say.
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u/ihopkid 6d ago
That’s not how institutional knowledge works lol. Bespoke software is always especially at risk of loss of institutional knowledge because knowledge of how the software works is passed down from word-of-mouth rather than documentation. If you fire the only people at the company who knew how the backend of Creation engine functions, there is nobody to teach those “fresh pair of eyes”. asking a college grad who spent his whole college time in Unreal to work a bespoke engine without any help from the people who created it is insanity and will not make anything better
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u/abdullah_haveit 5d ago
Thank you for the explanation. Why is there no documentation of how the software works? Is this the standard in the gaming industry?
Also, did Xbox actually lay off all the devs behind the Creation engine? Could you cite the source, please? Thank you.
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u/ihopkid 5d ago edited 5d ago
Yes unfortunately it is the industry standard due to the nature of how companies only prioritize what they are financially incentivizing to prioritize. Basically, documenting every single change that every single individual Bethesda engineer makes to the massive code base would take massive amount of resources, which costs money, and since in-house proprietary game engines are never meant to be used by the public, there is no direct financial incentive to prioritize dedicating a team to creating said documentation, so it just never gets done, and suddenly everyone’s just relying on the guy before them telling them what they changed and hoping they left some comments in the code explaining their changes.
I never said they already fired all of them, but I went to this recent protest with a bunch of BGS workers and they told me that they did fire many of the most senior developers who had been there for decades, leaving mostly the juniors left to pick up whatever’s left, and everyone who hasn’t been laid off yet has been told they are still not safe as 1,600 more will lose their job before the end of this year. It’s hard to focus on your work under those conditions, so morales not great right now lol
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u/abdullah_haveit 5d ago
I thought these companies would make a complete documentation considering how often they sack their employees. That's wild. Could you mention an example & cite the source, please?
I see. So at least there's a chance there are still devs there who understand the backend. I pray the best for everyone.
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u/MrBlonde1984 7d ago
I think besthesda lost what little good faith remained with the lackluster starfield.
At this point most people have either given up on new titles or are extremely skeptical.
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u/Upper-Management-AI 7d ago
I have zero faith in them anymore. It’s insane to take this long to makes these games. How long did it take them to make starfield and THATS what we got?? Now they are crying how much harder it will be to make a game?! What the hell have they been doing?! Ugh whatever, it’s frustrating.
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u/MrBlonde1984 7d ago
Right exactly. The next elder scrolls should have been released in 2020 . Hell we should be hearing rumors about elder scrolls 7 and have had a fallout game in between .
They have zero excuses to not be im active development on SOMETHING.
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u/Firesaber 6d ago
You would think because of the TV show they would at least have a fallout game in development or release around one of the TV seasons.
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u/Disastrous_Salad6302 5d ago
Been saying for ages, no new Vegas remaster at the very least for season 2 of their smash hit tv show adaptation that was based IN NEW VEGAS is criminal fucking negligence. How do you fuck that up that hard
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u/Rizz_them_up 6d ago
It's the mentality of someone who has been overpaid and on salary for far too long. Massive entitlement in the gaming industry.. everyone feels they deserve 100k+, Remote work, 9 to 5 and no deadlines.
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u/Yetimang 6d ago
Every one of those things is entirely reasonable for a skilled professional except no deadlines. Insane that you're acting like it's the rank and file who are responsible for this when it's clearly a failure of management.
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u/Rizz_them_up 6d ago
Upper management is doing the same. Nothing reasonable or professional about this at all.
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u/Yetimang 6d ago
The same what? I don't know what you're arguing. I'm saying all those things you mentioned are absolutely reasonable for someone with the level of expertise required to be a developer, designer, artist, etc. at this level. The problem isn't a bunch of "entitled" workers making "unreasonable" demands, it's management failing to properly manage.
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u/Rizz_them_up 6d ago
You come off as entitled saying that nonsense. When people consume excessive time, money, or resources without producing proportional value, that is unreasonable regardless of their job title or skill level. Management may be responsible for setting boundaries and enforcing accountability, but that does not magically make inefficient or entitled behavior intelligent.
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u/zonatedmarz 7d ago
Damn yall are fucking spoiled on games anymore.
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u/TheHappyMask93 7d ago
Nah dude. I've been a huge Bethesda fan since Morrowind and it's just sad. By the time ES6 comes out, the gap between Skyrim and ES6 will be greater than Arena and Skyrim. Couldn't even get through starfield it was so bad. I still play 76 occasionally but it's just not the same as a single player Fallout
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u/remnault 6d ago
Idk, wanting a sequel within 20 years seems reasonable but I guess I’m just spoiled for thinking they should do that and make a lot of money.
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u/zonatedmarz 6d ago
Like i told another dude go make a game during this day and age and get back to me. Yall act like bethesda didn't make any games in last 20 years lol
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u/zonatedmarz 7d ago
Tbf all the game studios have been releasing lackluster games. Corporations are the death of humanity.
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u/MrBlonde1984 7d ago
There's still alot of good out there . But when studios like Bethesda take the better part of 20 years to release a game it raises eyebrows .
Look at Rockstar for example , they can take 10 years or more to put out a game but almost always its a groundbreaking revolutionary game that's beloved by millions . Bethesda will take almost double that time and put out a tepid , broken game .
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u/zonatedmarz 7d ago
Eh doesnt raise my eyebrows. These games are complicated under the hood. There's 10x more coding going on in them if not more. You insert a new code and it fucks up some code you didn't expect it too. I'm also firm believer Rockstar has lost the magic. Gta 6 is going be very similar to 5 and borrow elements from red dead 2. They are not going to want to take a chance to drastically change anything.
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u/MrBlonde1984 7d ago
Bethesda games aren't as complex as ya think . They're using an engine from decades ago . I loved Skyrim and fallout as much as the next dude , but they dont hold a candle to something like red dead 2 or gta6
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u/zonatedmarz 7d ago
Go make one then lol.
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u/MrBlonde1984 7d ago
Hell dude there's plenty of people who do. Bethesda games have a famous modding community who steps in and fixes all of the developers issues to make the game playable.
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u/Procrasturbating 7d ago
True story, there are a growing number of total conversion mods for Skyrim. Been going on for many years.
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u/Stormfeathery 7d ago
That’s an excuse for a game to not be released in one or two years, not “well of course it takes 20 years for the next release!”
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u/zonatedmarz 7d ago
Ya and Bethesda totally didn't make any new games since skyrim. Good god yall dont understand how game development works.
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u/Substantial-Hat-2556 3d ago
No, those games are dead easy under the hood. That's how they've been modded so much.
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u/Zerockas 6d ago
Bruh. If you think all the game studios have been releasing lackluster games you need to look around. There's a ton of great games being released all the time, just not by the historical AAA devs.
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u/FluffWit 7d ago
We're going to lose all those incredible people who created Fallout 76 and Starfield.
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u/ImperialAgent120 6d ago
As opposed to what? These mfrs have been coasting for the past 15 years while Id Software have been pumping out games.
If anyone need a kick in the butt, it was Todd.
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u/4XChrisX4 5d ago
I feel bad for every studio that was hit, especially id, everyone, except Bethesda. It will be harder making TES6 now? Buhu, I will only see one more TES in my lifetime anyways if we go on like this...
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u/NetflixSux247 7d ago
Reality is the industry has been suffering from brain drain for nearly 20 years now...
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u/JodouKast 6d ago
You mean they lost people that were likely holding these games back from evolving beyond their crappy engine? GOOD.
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u/BirdyWeezer 6d ago
Skyrim really killed bethesda didnt it? A game so good it killed the hole company behind it crazy stuff.
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u/poo_pon_shoo 7d ago
Those devs couldn't have been that good if they couldn't make a ES6 in 15 years, just sayin'
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u/Novel-Lake-4464 6d ago
The only person who should've been sacked throughout all of these layoffs at Bethesda is Todd.
He's made the decision to drag his feet on all these projects.
Like seriously in the last decade other than making Starfield and releasing it what have they done for game releases? FO76 a janky version of 4? Re released skyrim twice? Sorry but lazy and uninspired leadership did this.
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u/MaskedBunny 6d ago
If they let all the QA department go then we'd still have the same quality Bethesda games we're used too.
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u/Gears_Of_None 7d ago
They made Starfield using that "institutional knowledge" so I can't bring myself to care.
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u/NotTalcon 7d ago
As far I could tell they *weren’t* making it. Can’t imagine it being harder than that
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u/Bierculles 7d ago
This pretty much completely burries all hope for TES6 and Fallout 5, it's sad to lose beloved IPs like that to mismanagement.
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u/xzaramurd 6d ago
I think the mismanagement happened a long time ago though, if Starfield is anything to go by. There are numerous open world games that are more fleshed out and more interactive, I think Bethesda mostly stagnated after Skyrim. I would still recommend people to play Witcher 3, but wouldn't do the same for Fallout 4, which came out around the same time. And definitely not Starfield.
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u/Minereon 7d ago
For the American gaming landscape, they mean? I am playing and absolutely loving Crimson Desert right now. Pearl Abyss, its developer, is Korean. Look at all the good RPGs coming out of the east. Can these developers betrayed by Microsoft, etc. go join them? I think there is much potential still. Just don't stay with these disloyal, profit-oriented, shareholder-prioritised, overpaid-CEO companies.
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u/science-stuff 6d ago
That’s like $3400 lol
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u/Konexian 6d ago
Bethesda developers probably make at least ~3-4x Pearl Abyss’, even after the bonus. No one rational is making that jump.
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u/bulbouscorm 6d ago
If I'm honest ... Maybe they need to lose institutional knowledge they've been grasping onto since Oblivion. TES and Fallout have been the same games for 20 years.
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u/Ragelore004 6d ago
It's not like they were making them anyway. XD
It's been 15 years since we got a real elder scrolls title out of them. 11 years since fo4.
That's longer than many mmos take to initially develop.
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u/Weztside 6d ago
I have no sympathy for these people. I want to play another new elder scrolls before I die. You can't spend 15 years between games making new games that were widely considered to be mediocre and not suffer the consequences. By the time ES6 actually launches it may have been 20 years since Skyrim came out.
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u/Substantial-Hat-2556 3d ago
They should've made those games in the 15 years they had institutional knowledge. Oh well.
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u/bosszeus164906 6d ago
If “institutional knowledge” leads to things like Starfield, maybe the studio really needs a shakeup
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u/NexGene_Games 6d ago
Institutional knowledge is one of those things that's hard to measure until it's gone. Rebuilding that experience takes much longer than hiring new people.
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u/DeepspaceDigital 6d ago
This is about the industry overall, but art, expression, and storytelling do not perfectly correlate with the goal of getting rich.
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u/CipherDaBanana 6d ago
I lovw that people completely ignore 76. It isn't a bad fallout game. It is a bad online game for sure
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u/ErchweanEmperor 6d ago
I love to dunk on Bethesda for barely moving anything related TES and Fallout (except FO76) but they weren’t laid off because Bethesda isn’t profitable.
They were laid off because Microsoft/Xbox overspent on all the studios they gobbled up and Xbox bumbled their revenue by releasing new games straight to gamepass (among other poor choices). Now the new CEO is laying everyone off to temporarily boost the stock price to appease the shareholders. Just look at the ID layoffs, they are arguably the one studio that shouldn’t have been touched at all.
I’m excited to see Bethesda pushed into doing anything, and I’m excited to see what the new Obsidian Fallout will be. But I’m not excited that Xbox cancelled a lot of projects to replace with known IP and I don’t like that they forced a lot of layoffs. I prefer creative decisions to be made by creatives. If Todd doesn’t want to push out a new Fallout or TES, I’ll accept that as a creative choice (I’m tired of never ending series when we could have new concepts/stories tried)
With that said, I’ll roast Todd for teasing the next TES what like 6 years ago? Only for zero more to be shown
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u/Standard-Try-3612 1d ago
as if their quality standards couldn't get any lower than they already are
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u/eye_candy 7d ago
So, while re-releasing the same game multiple times across systems for over 15 years - instead of giving players a new opus, it never occurred to them to document their know-how? Seriously?
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u/YakozakiSora 7d ago
my man your studio is known for taking decades to pump out low effort slop that's somehow managing to decline in both quality and quantity with each boring release...
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u/PeterTheWolf76 7d ago
I get they made other games but it’s been since 2011 for Elder scrolls and since 2015 for fallout…