10 Things No One Wants To Admit About Bethesda RPGs
We need to have a serious talk about Bethesda's RPGs.
Earning tonnes of acclaim from critics, winning hundreds of awards, and still adored and played by fans years after their initial release, there are no shortage of reasons why Bethesda's lineup of RPGs have become juggernauts within the industry.
Whether it's the irradiated wastelands of Fallout or the fantastical landscapes of The Elder Scrolls series, each world that Bethesda's development team has created is brimming with places to discover and quests to do. Even after exhausting everything these games have to offer, including expansions and experimenting with different choices and builds, the active modding community has created enough content to keep fans playing for hundreds of hours more.
Despite all the lavish praise that Bethesda's RPGs have earned over the decades, these games aren't perfect. In fact, they can be downright terrible at times.
Although longtime fans may find the idea of criticising Bethesda's shortcomings as blasphemous, it's nevertheless important to have an honest discussion about where the developers have continued to go wrong.
RPGs have come a long way since Skyrim was first released, but Bethesda's games are still be stuck in the past. As Starfield's lacklustre reception has shown, this might not be good enough anymore.
10. The Main Questlines Aren't That Good
Whether it's Baldur's Gate 3, Mass Effect, or Cyberpunk 2077, the greatest RPGs are epic in terms of both their size and narrative ambition. While Bethesda's collection of titles is best known for their expansive scope, their main plots have been consistently less impressive than other genre heavyweights.
Although premises like fighting a world-eating dragon, finding your lost son in a post-apocalyptic wasteland, and venturing across the galaxy in search of strange artefacts all sound like the start of a grand adventure, these questlines have proven to be the least interesting parts of their respective game.
The best moments in Bethesda's RPGs are instead found off the beaten path in their side quests. Skyrim had the Dark Brotherhood questline, Fallout 4 had The Silver Shroud, and one of Starfield's main highlights was going undercover within the Crimson Fleet.
This isn't to say that Bethesda's main quests don't have their fair share of standout moments, however. Battling dragons in Skyrim is still as exciting as ever, and Starfield's Entangled mission changed-up the gameplay in some genuinely surprising ways.
Unfortunately, these moments are far too rare for the main quests to be as engaging as the rest of these games.