Excellent interview, what a modern legend, incredible insight behind the curtain. although small nitpick when he dismissed early access with a fair point that a lot never leave it, you mentioned BG3 as a dispute and I thought you were going to say hey, they utilized early access incredibly well haha, a major part of their success, but totally just skated past that and changed subjects, it was a nice rebuttal haha, same with Hades. It can be an amazing resource, similar to mods giving Bethesda a huge fan resource for the following games
Hahaha I would say to him, as someone who was a mythology major and loved Norse mythology since the early 00s, GoW did a pretty damn good job interpreting the myths and incorporating even deep cuts, although AC Valhalla impressed me on a smaller degree by incorporating odins havamal and eivor quotes it
I’ve been a Bethesda games nut since Daggerfall in the 90s and a deep dive interview like this with an industry veteran of games that I’ve loved for over 25 years is a dream to see. Ben (and MinnMax at large) is doing things at levels that no other outlet is doing. Phenomenal work here, thanks for this!
I have wondered for YEARS who to thank for that questline and was afraid their talent went unnoticed. Now I finally know who to thank. That was a masterstroke in good writing and he deserves all the praise he gets for the Oblivion Thieves' Guild. I'm actually not a huge fan of Skyrim lol, but still thrilled to hear he got enough recognition that he was the lead designer for it. It was a good pick and well deserved. Shame to hear he is no longer making games, but if he's writing stories, they may be worth checking out.
Legendary interview, Ben continues to hold his position as easily the most top-tier interviewer with the most interesting and thought-provoking questions
Refreshingly honest perspective from Bruce, especially when the rest of Bethesda often feels like they're trying to share as little info as possible. It's great to finally hear some insights from *someone.*
Appreciate the sentiment that “game studios know what they’re giving up as resources are limited”, but at the same time that is exactly why top level decision is important. Is a ship builder really more important than exploration? Then there are other top level decisions such as building the right game with the game engine you have. Thinking that they can build a space exploration game with their aging engine is perhaps another sign of hubris.
Completely agree, they are making what I consider to be wrong decisions. But I appreciate his point of view. It really shows how hard it is to make a great game and how eay it is to fuck up a few decisons.
In don´t think that "ship builder or exploration" would be a decision. These features don´t compete with each other. Yes, you need ressources and budget for both features, but these ressources won´t be the same people. It´s more like "ship builder or outposts" - they did both and I would say - THAT wasn´t nessecary. I would have cut the outposts and focus more on the ship as a player housing thing. Exploration in space games will always be a challenge especially when people want Beth-like exploration. I think it was the right decision to have these many planets and moons only to give players the feeling of a big universe. Only a few of these planets have to be colonised, the rest should only be there for enviromental story telling, fetch quests like bounty hunting a random guy on the moon XYZ or ressource gathering - if you want... And they did kind of that but with two flaws - there is no enviromental story telling on these barren planets and the planets which should have been more interesting with hand crafted landscapes, caves, stories and NPCs - are way too small. Akila City is great in my opinion, but that should be one of many settlements and not a main city. New Atlantis should be way bigger and the surroundings should be full of points of interest so that you can spend many hours on Jemison alone. I really don´t think, that the loading screens and such are the big problems Starfield have. I don´t think it´s an engine thing. I think the main problems of Bethesda are focus and writing. The dialogues and quests in Starfield and most other Beth games are artificial, outdated and boring. THAT is my main concern with the game and it´s a shame, that Bethesda doesn´t seem to get how to tell stories when there are so many good examples like all the Witcher and Rockstar games, even the older Bioware games were much better in that regard. And the thing with focus - everything in Starfield seems to be working ok, but nothing really stands out. The quests are there, nothing special. The fighting is ok, nothing special. The perk-system is nothing new, but ok - it works. The companions are ... there... A better engine wouldn´t do much to repair these flaws. Maybe you could have more features, maybe you could fly without loading screens to the planets surface, maybe the NPCs would look nicer, but would the game be more fun? I don´t think so. It´s the same with movies - you can have the biggest budget, a good cast, super special effects, but when you have bad writing you get the last Star Wars trilogy, the phase 4 of the MCU or the DCEU.
Their "aging engine" was significantly upgraded for Skyrim and then again for Starfield. Code doesn't degrade with time so the age has little to no relevance.
30 min in, already really insightful and contextualises Bethesda over time. Also, you'd think Ben was super into BG3 the way he asked those questions, kept the conversation going and played along when references to DnD came up.
Anybody in gaming knows BG3....I say that but those Microsoft leaks had them thinking it would only cost 5 million to get in on gamepass before it came out of early access so if the biggest gaming company in the world is clueless to the biggest game this year any5hing is possible 😅
Imagine working at TSR before it was utterly destroyed by Wizards, then moving on to Bethesda. Quite literally my employment/life dream. Fantastic interview.
Fallout 76’s biggest sin that all live service titles make (and the one that you can’t just fix over time) is that the money-making mechanics always show. They always end up revealing to the player that buying stuff is as or more important than losing yourself in the world.
The other is probably being the one of the buggiest games released in years. I tried playing it 2 years after release when it was "fixed". The game stuck in impossible to disable never ending animations where I hard to restart the game to fix them and endless other bugs to the point where I just couldn't have fun and uninstalled.
That the "money-making mechanics always show"? Or that the video game slot machines specifically designed to *prey* on a community's love and nostalgia for whatever game universe might not exist at all? The public turn against such predatory practices in the industry should be pretty obvious to thinking people by now. Perhaps "the admin," as Mr. Nesmith put it, might take note.
You know, hearing that the same guy who took on crunching the astrophysics, planetary data, space combat *and* ship building was *also* responsible for the state of the Perk system and subsequent Challenge system.. makes an unfortunate degree of sense. I regretfully admit upon hearing him say he did both of those (Perks+Challenges), my kneejerk reaction was to say, ".. OH, so that was your fault." Sorry man, whether what it inevitably wound up as was entirely what was intended from the outset before it changed hands, it fell the F apart at several points upon launch, and a large chunk of the community is exhaustively attempting to correct it, or in some cases just outright making things function as intended.
Yeah, the perk challenges... It's so boring to grind through these challenges just to unlock a perk that, in my opinion, should be part of the game instead of the perk system.
In something like this I would place the fault on the structures and the executive management. Ultimately they are overseeing the project at the highest level, and they should not allow one person to be an island or a point of failure. What you just described is way too much work for one person to get right on their own, and really should have a team of people working on each aspect to ensure it feels right and gives the best experience.
He clearly says - 'We wont allow you to only play 50% of the game, because you wont play 100% of the game' The interviewer never pushed back on this. Especially when that is exactly what Morrowind did in 2002 and BG3 in 2023 and both were fantastic role playing games. I hope they realize the industry has changed and players expect more roleplaying nowdays.
Ben is a low key incredible interviewer. He asks direct and sometimes hard questions.. a breath of fresh air . So many interviewers are too obsequious and stoked to have a good guest
I haven't played any Bethesda games but I think this is one of my favorite interviews just because he seems like such a straight shooter, honest about the stuff he did answer and honest about something he didn't want to answer as opposed to some 'non answer'. Ben is also great at feeling out what kind of questions are gonna get answered so you get a combination of more universal insights as well as niche specific game insights
@@DaoistYeashikAli it pretty much comes down to me not liking RPG mechanics all that much as well as me hating there games' visuals till around fallout 4
The figuring how games work part of a new game can sometimes hit a frustrating snag, but generally speaking it's one of my favorite parts. That discovering things or having them click in your head of 'oh that's how this all interacts'.
Larian Studios and Baldur's Gate 3 have proved how valuable early access can be for a giant RPG. It's not just "smaller games" anymore. I strongly believe Starfield would've flourished in early access.
13:39 "Let's leave while i'm at the top" because it can only go down from there.... And it did. Now Will Chen left, Jeff Gardiner left, Kurt Kuhlman left and i bet you that Todd also wants to leave/retire but he's now the figure head the face of Bethesda, if he leaves it would greatly impact morale outside and inside the company.
I very much appreciate it. You do the most incredible interviews Ben, and you always get such fascinating people from the industry. Love it - great work! =D
For me Starfield would have been a better game with smaller size of a universe where most of the stuff that you do in game could have in some way served the overall plot of the game. I must say i was bit surprised that getting those powers was just a matter of getting to a planet and then floating to a few fast spinning orbs before i was able to get a new power. Think i aqquired about 8 of them before i decided that I will just fast forward the main plot line since instead of aqquiring each power at a end of a longer questline it just felt like collecting stuff in a Assasins Creed game. All in all I spent about 50 hours in the game and got to level 52. Did most of the faction quests and a lot of sidequests but at some point it all started feeling really repetitive and there are a lot of other games at the moment which offer me a experience that doesnt feel as repetive. I think Todd should stop with his obsession of having a bigger and bigger world and concentrate more on the quality of the quests in that particular universe. Sometimes less is indeed more.
To be fair when we said we wanted multiplayer what we wanted was 4 person co-op, just let me play fallout 3, NV, and 4 with 3 friends and you have a hit
Hey Ben your interview style has grown; you‘ve been great at this but this one it shifted onto a level that really makes me feel like you could easily handle even the Molyneux‘ and Miyamotos of the industry with ease. Way to go!
So good to hear these things about Starfield, and not that usual crap that many "content creators" want to dig up from any imaginable location. NIce to hear what Bruce had to say. Thanks! But oh, those planes in Independence Day were F/A-18's, not F-16's.
i mean when bg3 does that it give it way more replayability tho and i know alot of players like that tho, i like to have a reason to play any game more then once and im sure im not alone in this either.
Great interview! It was nice to hear someone who was so proud of his work. You always do a great job of picking unique, cool questions, thanks for that.
10:58 The player community had been requesting a Fallout SP w/co-op for years and most definitely not a "live service" MMO. Bethesda knows this as well as I do. I personally couldn't have cared less if they had continued making Fallout games single-player only, but was well aware of that specific request nonetheless. If it was not "the higher ups" who were demanding a live service MMO, then no one was. As long as we're being honest here, let's be honest about that, at least.
This is very true, at one point or another someone must've mentioned co-op but was rejected in favour of live service. I think what went down is Todd pitched the idea of co-op but the higher-ups at Zenimax studied it and came back with the results that makes them the most money possible... And that was live service garbage in Fallout universe.
@@Vert_GreenHeart A lot of people forget (or never knew) that 76 was under development at the same time the ZeniMax/MS deal was going through. I can just feel the pressure on Bethesda to monetize absolutely everything in its catalog that could possibly be monetized to make the deal seem more attractive to MS. But while I'd like to think Todd pitched the community's request for a SP w/co-op, only flies on the walls of Bethesda's studios could ever know that, especially considering Bethesda is doubling down on the predatory microtransaction bs with its latest Skyrim scheme.
" Once you've made one solar system, making 100 is not that much more work." Not for the devs but it is a tedious amount of work for the players if it's boring and samey
I would love to ask him what they were thinking, leaving out all the exploration from Starfield. Why did they think the main reason people play their games is not needed anymore?
Bruce has a backward view of what Larian did with Baldurs gate 3. Decisions having consequences incrase game length. The player gets multiple 100 hour games to play. All with different characters and storylines. It by no means blocks off material it just increases immersion and lends itself to replayability.
Starfield has ng+.... cant make enemies, cant choose anything, cant mess up, cant kill anyone, cant destroy planets, cant be evil. Its fukking childish and dry game. Buuut i think they improved dialogue from skyrim. It can be boring but it still gives you more answer options and you can speak with your companions. But game of this size...amount of cities...amount of companions....its ridiculous
@@pedrohenriquesoutogueiros1449 I don't think that's the reason. Even with highly replayable games like Witcher 3 only about 25 percent of people even beat the game once. People just don't usually stick with games for long enough to beat them let alone replay them.
I don't think he meant it negatively. He said he didn't think it was a fit for their specific games and fans. Many people play a single character with 1000s of hours and do every faction/side quest in TES5 for example while you basically become god-like in Tamriel (Dragonborn). That powerporn and "living in the game" immersion are arguably the appeal of their games. I think FONV hit a nice balance with this but that was not BGS.
I love his comment on Early Access and that it’s still publishing the game but in beta form. Regarding Baulder’s Gate 3 closing off sections from a game adds a lot of replayability. For example I have no interest in replaying Fallout 76 because I’m still friends with Foundation and the Raiders. I was hoping it would’ve closed off content and maybe open others where the Raiders became weak and more like an insurgency and Foundation to become a juggernaut.
Seening him talk about video game development truly reminded me the nightmare stages you have to face a software developer. I mean it truly is a hit of luck sometimes. It was so nice to learn from thos guy, he seriously knows what's up with the industry
Another great interview. When i watch Ben do an interview somewhere in my mind I am thinking - god i hope he doesnt become unhinged and ask the crazy questions that i know are brewing away in his mind 😂. You haven't let me down yet ... ❤
Wow, TSR in '81. I would have been seven, so that era of TSR's brand of D&D is my foundation for so many things - TSR in general really, good library overall for a commodore kid. So yeah, Bruce huh. You could say he's OG af, right?
The part about BG3, re: how at Bethesda they simply don't design games that way and that you are meant to see everything. That's why none of their games actually have consequence much to the choice you make and sort of play like offline MMOs. Like a checkbox of quests you tick off one after another until you're done. Which is particularly unfortunate in Fallout, as Fallout was a series all about character choice and consequence and branching quests. See New Vegas, which takes FO3 and improves on it tenfold. But Fallout 1 is a game that is this open as a consequence of that, it can be completed in well under 20 hours... and the Big Bad simply "defeated" via dialogue. Which also isn't Bethesda's aim as he argued. In the grander scheme, that's most AAA studios though. For every Arkane who even lets you skip their most fantastic levels in there entirelly -- there's ten studios making damn sure that all the huge money they pour into the game, you're going to see all of that no matter what. And I think that's going to be more severe as time goes on and budgets increase further. Even CD Projekt, their games are more like movies with some COYA sections, the actual playing experience, quests in particular, are completely linear. I mean, you can sequence break quests in BG3, and the game still finds a way to carry on. NPC may die in a fight (not even caused by you) and the quest they are connected to, you may never find it due to them being dead... this stuff should be the start into a bright future, embracing games as the interactive mediums they are (similar to Looking Glass Studios games back then, who had a similar philosophy underneath). But likely won't be much with but a few exceptions.
Starfield: We don't want to lock content off to anyone, so we lock every thinkable option off to the player except for one. I feel like this "locks off" more than it actually enables. In BG3 you can do whatever option YOU want. You are free to do as many fun things which "lock off content" as you want. Because it leads to alternative fun content and you can always make another playthrouh in which you do end up choosing the previously locked off routes. Content is never locked off in a game, it's not like you are only allowed to do one playthrough. Even in Bethesdas previous titles I would do multiple playthroughs, for me invalidating their "we don't want to lock stuff off" approach. In Fallout 4 for example I completely committed to nuking the railroad when I met them. I was playing an evil character and their condescending reaction to my answer "no I wouldn't sacrifice my life for a robot" made me want to nuke them right then and there. I was glad I was able to do that, It was very fun. I knew that the whole railroad questline was now locked off, and I appreciated that. Please rethink this approach Bethesda, or at least make sure the quests are fun enough (for me) not to need player choice. The Dark Brotherhood in Oblivion is one of my favorite Bethesda questlines.
It’s sad to see what little awareness he has of how disappointing Starfield was. I had hoped to hear about my favorite Elder Scrolls game, Morrowind, but of course he left during that very period of Bethesda - still, I enjoyed the perspective he had for the years he was there. My main worry is other designers also not seeing the problems with Starfield and them thinking that ES6 is going to be good in Creation still; they need a new engine, badly.
No wonder modern Bethesda is massively outdated and creatively bankrupt, they're all the same people from 15-20 years ago making the same kind of game, with little to no contact with their massive audience, no creative or fresh input outside of what Todd deems appropiate and with the hubris through the roof after selling and reselling Skyrim in every system imaginable. Starfield being the culmination of such boring design philosophy totally clicks after hearing this. Loved the interview though, very informative and despite what I think of some of Bethesda's design decisions, Mr Nesmith is one knowledgeable and well spoken man indeed. And Ben knocked it out of the park with the questions, very nice.
Where to find channels that do interviews with designers or devs from big studios or doing some backstage of some cool games? I would listen more insides from Bethesda, how they work how they setup processes? Where can i find stuff like that? Not “cool stories” but more tech stuff.
Favorite old school computer game was the first color game I played, which was Ultima VII Part Two: Serpent Isle. Plenty of console gaming before hand, Atari and Nintento, but regarding computers, that was the one game that got me to ditch consoles and get in the PC games, which I bought my own around 1997. Favorite games of all time are Oblivion and Skyrim. Best games I have played. 3rd best is Red Dead Redemption 2, which is outstanding for a 3rd person game, which I generally will not play .
Based on the last few games, I think Todd is slowly but surely losing touch with what the mainstream gamer wants. When BG3 has untold success with complexity at its bedrock with RPG in full display, I think the mainstream gamer is ready for more than what they have been shovelling.. Especially the load simulator game we got recently.
Erm no, you don't get extra credit for having fewer bugs. You are buying a product and having it work as advertised is the base standard. If a car company makes four models where the engine had a 5% chance to stop on a cold day, you wouldn't congratulate them if their fifth iteration addressed that issue and only had a 2% chance. Over a (100 day) winter that's still 2 days your car can't get you to work. In practice, people accept that modern games are horrendously complex pieces of machinery and are forgiving of some bugginess, but never forget that every instance of jank renders the game less than is advertised. Bethesda should and have received credit for minimizing a problem, but minimizing a negative will never flip over into being a positive feature.
34:00 to be fair, its basically fallout in space so tutorial wise most ppl already knew how to play it. Overtutorialising can be more annoying than no tutorials.
Eh, it would've really been pushing it to put Fallout 5 in that engine. Personally I think that would've been disappointing for the next mainline entry, whereas 76 is side entry.
I like what he had to say about the exploration aspect not totally hitting right for everyone. The game is doing a lot of things. Its very ambitious in that it has so many systems and elements that require a lot of dedication to get right. This is something that I don't think everyone takes into consideration when critiquing the game. A game that doing so much is inevitably not going to 100 percent stick the landing in every area. It's not just an exploration game. It's doing many things. But hopefully Bethesda will heavily support this game for years to come and improve the experience as much as they can.
Making a game do everything like that stretches it thin, making it all bland. Focusing on core aspects of the game and going further with those makes games fun. If you're a jack of all trades, then you're a master of none.
yeah, 1 formula for all the planets all right.... Of course I understand the principle, the first time you step down on random planets, it has a lot of atmosphere. There's points of interests on the horizon and the biomes vary. But after a few it just really wears off and is not interesting or fun. The tailored, crafted content is the best stuff in Starfield.
Hey, I remember Nesmith. He was the designer of thieves guild questline of oblivion. Tbh his works along with Pagliarulo were also downgrade from their predecessors like Kirkbride and Peterson. Factions in oblivion and later games felt childish with no real depth. They also abondoned the old lore in favour of simple questionable lore with no mature themes like previous TES games. Shivering Isles' portrayal of madness felt like a parody and to the point of being comical. He is also responsible for that stupid radient quest system in skyrim. He is one of the streamliners responsible for the degradation of Bethesda
The faction in old games like Morrowind is mad overrated and Morrowind bros are the most obnoxious part of the Elder Scrolls community. I prefer the factions in Oblivion. I prefer Shivering Isles. It was meant to be comical. Concepts like madness and chaos are kind of ridiculous and divorced from the way real believable humans behave. I don't know what you wanted.
@@dickthebirthdayboy2132 I just simply wanted a realistic and gritty take on serious issues like madness. Morrowind was alien and exotic which added to its atmosphere. Cyrodill felt like a typical LoTR world. Project Tamriel's version of Cyrodill based on the old lore seems a like much more interesting place to me
@@DaoistYeashikAliAgree. The way you can join all factions and become the leader of every faction in Oblivion sucked. Morrowind had real faction dynamics and rivalries.
I’ve played Skyrim for triple the amount of hours and most of them were modded on and Xbox, so needless to say, it was broken for me too. Playing on PC was night and day. I think it crashed like 3 times over the course of 6 months. Xbox would crash like 3-5 times per session.
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Excellent interview, what a modern legend, incredible insight behind the curtain. although small nitpick when he dismissed early access with a fair point that a lot never leave it, you mentioned BG3 as a dispute and I thought you were going to say hey, they utilized early access incredibly well haha, a major part of their success, but totally just skated past that and changed subjects, it was a nice rebuttal haha, same with Hades. It can be an amazing resource, similar to mods giving Bethesda a huge fan resource for the following games
Hahaha I would say to him, as someone who was a mythology major and loved Norse mythology since the early 00s, GoW did a pretty damn good job interpreting the myths and incorporating even deep cuts, although AC Valhalla impressed me on a smaller degree by incorporating odins havamal and eivor quotes it
I'm kinda speechless. This is obligatory viewing for future developers.
Not just developers but project managers. A cautionary tale as to how not to approach a project.
Sadly it went way too underrated, this sheds light on modern Bethesda and how bleak it really is now.
Ben, you have surpassed your already stellar record of interviews here on MinnMax. Incredible interview.
When it comes to industry news/interviews there are few people like Ben out there. Truly one of the best. Thanks for the interview!
This is not an exaggeration.
Definitely!
The Elder Scrolls series means a lot to me, Minnmax stays winning with these interviews
The first Elder Scrolls game blew me away. I was hooked.
This franchise meant a lot to me. Then I grew up, and the franchise didn't.
I’ve been a Bethesda games nut since Daggerfall in the 90s and a deep dive interview like this with an industry veteran of games that I’ve loved for over 25 years is a dream to see. Ben (and MinnMax at large) is doing things at levels that no other outlet is doing. Phenomenal work here, thanks for this!
He did the thieves guild plot for Oblivion!! One of my all time favourite quests, impressive.
I have wondered for YEARS who to thank for that questline and was afraid their talent went unnoticed. Now I finally know who to thank. That was a masterstroke in good writing and he deserves all the praise he gets for the Oblivion Thieves' Guild.
I'm actually not a huge fan of Skyrim lol, but still thrilled to hear he got enough recognition that he was the lead designer for it. It was a good pick and well deserved. Shame to hear he is no longer making games, but if he's writing stories, they may be worth checking out.
The quest was cool but it definitely gimped the guild. "U can't kill hrr durr" that's such a stupid idea for fucking criminals.
I’m a fan of all the MinnMax content but these kinds of interviews are my favorite for sure. Thanks!
Thank you! Any help spreading the word is appreciated.
Legendary interview, Ben continues to hold his position as easily the most top-tier interviewer with the most interesting and thought-provoking questions
Killer interview Ben, shout out to Bruce for being so eloquent and honest.
Refreshingly honest perspective from Bruce, especially when the rest of Bethesda often feels like they're trying to share as little info as possible. It's great to finally hear some insights from *someone.*
Appreciate the sentiment that “game studios know what they’re giving up as resources are limited”, but at the same time that is exactly why top level decision is important. Is a ship builder really more important than exploration? Then there are other top level decisions such as building the right game with the game engine you have. Thinking that they can build a space exploration game with their aging engine is perhaps another sign of hubris.
yeah i was thinking the same
Completely agree, they are making what I consider to be wrong decisions. But I appreciate his point of view. It really shows how hard it is to make a great game and how eay it is to fuck up a few decisons.
@@happydan20 theres a difference between beeing had to make a great game, and maging bad games two decades in a row.
In don´t think that "ship builder or exploration" would be a decision. These features don´t compete with each other. Yes, you need ressources and budget for both features, but these ressources won´t be the same people. It´s more like "ship builder or outposts" - they did both and I would say - THAT wasn´t nessecary. I would have cut the outposts and focus more on the ship as a player housing thing.
Exploration in space games will always be a challenge especially when people want Beth-like exploration.
I think it was the right decision to have these many planets and moons only to give players the feeling of a big universe. Only a few of these planets have to be colonised, the rest should only be there for enviromental story telling, fetch quests like bounty hunting a random guy on the moon XYZ or ressource gathering - if you want...
And they did kind of that but with two flaws - there is no enviromental story telling on these barren planets and the planets which should have been more interesting with hand crafted landscapes, caves, stories and NPCs - are way too small. Akila City is great in my opinion, but that should be one of many settlements and not a main city. New Atlantis should be way bigger and the surroundings should be full of points of interest so that you can spend many hours on Jemison alone.
I really don´t think, that the loading screens and such are the big problems Starfield have. I don´t think it´s an engine thing.
I think the main problems of Bethesda are focus and writing.
The dialogues and quests in Starfield and most other Beth games are artificial, outdated and boring. THAT is my main concern with the game and it´s a shame, that Bethesda doesn´t seem to get how to tell stories when there are so many good examples like all the Witcher and Rockstar games, even the older Bioware games were much better in that regard.
And the thing with focus - everything in Starfield seems to be working ok, but nothing really stands out.
The quests are there, nothing special. The fighting is ok, nothing special. The perk-system is nothing new, but ok - it works. The companions are ... there...
A better engine wouldn´t do much to repair these flaws. Maybe you could have more features, maybe you could fly without loading screens to the planets surface, maybe the NPCs would look nicer, but would the game be more fun? I don´t think so.
It´s the same with movies - you can have the biggest budget, a good cast, super special effects, but when you have bad writing you get the last Star Wars trilogy, the phase 4 of the MCU or the DCEU.
Their "aging engine" was significantly upgraded for Skyrim and then again for Starfield. Code doesn't degrade with time so the age has little to no relevance.
30 min in, already really insightful and contextualises Bethesda over time. Also, you'd think Ben was super into BG3 the way he asked those questions, kept the conversation going and played along when references to DnD came up.
Anybody in gaming knows BG3....I say that but those Microsoft leaks had them thinking it would only cost 5 million to get in on gamepass before it came out of early access so if the biggest gaming company in the world is clueless to the biggest game this year any5hing is possible 😅
@@samgoff5289 it's just a running thing on the channel that ben doesn't get bg3
“Do you think you were losing that focus?” Such good questions Ben!!
Imagine working at TSR before it was utterly destroyed by Wizards, then moving on to Bethesda. Quite literally my employment/life dream. Fantastic interview.
Awesome interview. Even as a graphic designer, Bruce's insights on the creative process gives me so much inspiration.
Fantastic interview. Was really cool to hear all of Bruce's stories.
Fallout 76’s biggest sin that all live service titles make (and the one that you can’t just fix over time) is that the money-making mechanics always show. They always end up revealing to the player that buying stuff is as or more important than losing yourself in the world.
The other is probably being the one of the buggiest games released in years. I tried playing it 2 years after release when it was "fixed". The game stuck in impossible to disable never ending animations where I hard to restart the game to fix them and endless other bugs to the point where I just couldn't have fun and uninstalled.
That the "money-making mechanics always show"? Or that the video game slot machines specifically designed to *prey* on a community's love and nostalgia for whatever game universe might not exist at all? The public turn against such predatory practices in the industry should be pretty obvious to thinking people by now. Perhaps "the admin," as Mr. Nesmith put it, might take note.
The Tenth Planet info was pretty nice! Thanks Bruce and Ben
You know, hearing that the same guy who took on crunching the astrophysics, planetary data, space combat *and* ship building was *also* responsible for the state of the Perk system and subsequent Challenge system.. makes an unfortunate degree of sense.
I regretfully admit upon hearing him say he did both of those (Perks+Challenges), my kneejerk reaction was to say, ".. OH, so that was your fault." Sorry man, whether what it inevitably wound up as was entirely what was intended from the outset before it changed hands, it fell the F apart at several points upon launch, and a large chunk of the community is exhaustively attempting to correct it, or in some cases just outright making things function as intended.
Yeah, the perk challenges... It's so boring to grind through these challenges just to unlock a perk that, in my opinion, should be part of the game instead of the perk system.
In something like this I would place the fault on the structures and the executive management. Ultimately they are overseeing the project at the highest level, and they should not allow one person to be an island or a point of failure. What you just described is way too much work for one person to get right on their own, and really should have a team of people working on each aspect to ensure it feels right and gives the best experience.
I think they over worked him
He clearly says - 'We wont allow you to only play 50% of the game, because you wont play 100% of the game'
The interviewer never pushed back on this.
Especially when that is exactly what Morrowind did in 2002 and BG3 in 2023 and both were fantastic role playing games.
I hope they realize the industry has changed and players expect more roleplaying nowdays.
Ben just does the best interviews. Incredible work once again!
These interviews are absolute gems!
Ben is a low key incredible interviewer. He asks direct and sometimes hard questions.. a breath of fresh air . So many interviewers are too obsequious and stoked to have a good guest
Just finished the interview. A lot of amazing insight!
Fascinating interview - love the decades of perspective and anecdotes.
Always excited for another in-depth interview from MinnMax!! Keep them coming!!
This was gold, thank you.
10/10 interview Ben! As always, i came here for info and i didn't get disappointed !
Absolutely my favorite piece of MinnMax content so far this year. Love your interviews!
I haven't played any Bethesda games but I think this is one of my favorite interviews just because he seems like such a straight shooter, honest about the stuff he did answer and honest about something he didn't want to answer as opposed to some 'non answer'. Ben is also great at feeling out what kind of questions are gonna get answered so you get a combination of more universal insights as well as niche specific game insights
Were you living under a rock?
@@DaoistYeashikAli it pretty much comes down to me not liking RPG mechanics all that much as well as me hating there games' visuals till around fallout 4
The figuring how games work part of a new game can sometimes hit a frustrating snag, but generally speaking it's one of my favorite parts. That discovering things or having them click in your head of 'oh that's how this all interacts'.
Love these interviews. Thanks for the content
Fantastic interview. Thanks for asking such great questions, spanning so many awesome topics.
Holy Wow!! Great get Ben Hanson!! Keep these interviews coming. This is why I contribute to MinnMax Patreon!!
Deeply appreciate the interviews you guys are doing, especially how long, specific and granular they are. Happy to have stumbled on this channel!
Excellent interview as always
He confirmed that Bethesda literally does take a "quantity over quality" approach.
The seemingly random third spot UA-cam slot actually recommended a good video - fantastic interview!
The legendary Ben Hanson arranging the stars in the most epic of constellations. All for our listening pleasure 🍻
Larian Studios and Baldur's Gate 3 have proved how valuable early access can be for a giant RPG. It's not just "smaller games" anymore. I strongly believe Starfield would've flourished in early access.
13:39 "Let's leave while i'm at the top" because it can only go down from there.... And it did. Now Will Chen left, Jeff Gardiner left, Kurt Kuhlman left and i bet you that Todd also wants to leave/retire but he's now the figure head the face of Bethesda, if he leaves it would greatly impact morale outside and inside the company.
I very much appreciate it. You do the most incredible interviews Ben, and you always get such fascinating people from the industry. Love it - great work! =D
For me Starfield would have been a better game with smaller size of a universe where most of the stuff that you do in game could have in some way served the overall plot of the game. I must say i was bit surprised that getting those powers was just a matter of getting to a planet and then floating to a few fast spinning orbs before i was able to get a new power. Think i aqquired about 8 of them before i decided that I will just fast forward the main plot line since instead of aqquiring each power at a end of a longer questline it just felt like collecting stuff in a Assasins Creed game. All in all I spent about 50 hours in the game and got to level 52. Did most of the faction quests and a lot of sidequests but at some point it all started feeling really repetitive and there are a lot of other games at the moment which offer me a experience that doesnt feel as repetive. I think Todd should stop with his obsession of having a bigger and bigger world and concentrate more on the quality of the quests in that particular universe. Sometimes less is indeed more.
Agreed. BGS just didn't know what kind of "The Space Game" to make so they did poorly at many "space" things. Starfield has NO Identity.
Huge fan of your long form interviews. Especially good one this, thank you.
To be fair when we said we wanted multiplayer what we wanted was 4 person co-op, just let me play fallout 3, NV, and 4 with 3 friends and you have a hit
Hey Ben your interview style has grown; you‘ve been great at this but this one it shifted onto a level that really makes me feel like you could easily handle even the Molyneux‘ and Miyamotos of the industry with ease. Way to go!
So BRUCE is the one who made me destroy 40 ships to pilot a Class C ship! *shakes fist* :)
Spectacular interview and interviewee. Congratulations!
So good to hear these things about Starfield, and not that usual crap that many "content creators" want to dig up from any imaginable location.
NIce to hear what Bruce had to say. Thanks!
But oh, those planes in Independence Day were F/A-18's, not F-16's.
great interview ben, cheers to you! enjoy a nice refreshing seltzer water
i mean when bg3 does that it give it way more replayability tho and i know alot of players like that tho, i like to have a reason to play any game more then once and im sure im not alone in this either.
36:15 That's crazy, I had the *exact* same thought about Starfield, literally the 2 dozen number.
Apart from all the bias and hate towards that game or this - clickbait content all over - this is actually content and real insight.
Seriously great interview, thank you!
This was truly a fantastic interview
Great interview! It was nice to hear someone who was so proud of his work. You always do a great job of picking unique, cool questions, thanks for that.
10:58 The player community had been requesting a Fallout SP w/co-op for years and most definitely not a "live service" MMO. Bethesda knows this as well as I do. I personally couldn't have cared less if they had continued making Fallout games single-player only, but was well aware of that specific request nonetheless. If it was not "the higher ups" who were demanding a live service MMO, then no one was.
As long as we're being honest here, let's be honest about that, at least.
This is very true, at one point or another someone must've mentioned co-op but was rejected in favour of live service.
I think what went down is Todd pitched the idea of co-op but the higher-ups at Zenimax studied it and came back with the results that makes them the most money possible... And that was live service garbage in Fallout universe.
@@Vert_GreenHeart A lot of people forget (or never knew) that 76 was under development at the same time the ZeniMax/MS deal was going through. I can just feel the pressure on Bethesda to monetize absolutely everything in its catalog that could possibly be monetized to make the deal seem more attractive to MS. But while I'd like to think Todd pitched the community's request for a SP w/co-op, only flies on the walls of Bethesda's studios could ever know that, especially considering Bethesda is doubling down on the predatory microtransaction bs with its latest Skyrim scheme.
Great interview!
"More talented designer than I am". How humble this man is.
Truly insightful interview - great work!
" Once you've made one solar system, making 100 is not that much more work." Not for the devs but it is a tedious amount of work for the players if it's boring and samey
These interviews are invaluable Ben. Thank you!
Amazing interview
Hope you cover more Bethesda, i love Skyrim & Starfield
Bro, this was good. 👍 Thank you.
I liked listening to him talk about baldurs gate 3. Bg3 is a triumph plain and simple. It shows that playing it safe doesn't always work best.
I would love to ask him what they were thinking, leaving out all the exploration from Starfield. Why did they think the main reason people play their games is not needed anymore?
Bruce has a backward view of what Larian did with Baldurs gate 3. Decisions having consequences incrase game length. The player gets multiple 100 hour games to play. All with different characters and storylines. It by no means blocks off material it just increases immersion and lends itself to replayability.
Starfield has ng+.... cant make enemies, cant choose anything, cant mess up, cant kill anyone, cant destroy planets, cant be evil. Its fukking childish and dry game. Buuut i think they improved dialogue from skyrim. It can be boring but it still gives you more answer options and you can speak with your companions. But game of this size...amount of cities...amount of companions....its ridiculous
I don't think most people replay games. So it's effectively blocking off material from most players.
@@AM-PM-00 because most games are lacking in replayability
@@pedrohenriquesoutogueiros1449 I don't think that's the reason. Even with highly replayable games like Witcher 3 only about 25 percent of people even beat the game once. People just don't usually stick with games for long enough to beat them let alone replay them.
I don't think he meant it negatively. He said he didn't think it was a fit for their specific games and fans. Many people play a single character with 1000s of hours and do every faction/side quest in TES5 for example while you basically become god-like in Tamriel (Dragonborn). That powerporn and "living in the game" immersion are arguably the appeal of their games. I think FONV hit a nice balance with this but that was not BGS.
As always, super insightful interview!
Fun listening to it!
Side note: I listened to this at 1.5x speed and Bruce seems to talk at normal speed.
I love his comment on Early Access and that it’s still publishing the game but in beta form.
Regarding Baulder’s Gate 3 closing off sections from a game adds a lot of replayability. For example I have no interest in replaying Fallout 76 because I’m still friends with Foundation and the Raiders. I was hoping it would’ve closed off content and maybe open others where the Raiders became weak and more like an insurgency and Foundation to become a juggernaut.
Interesting Interview!
Seening him talk about video game development truly reminded me the nightmare stages you have to face a software developer. I mean it truly is a hit of luck sometimes. It was so nice to learn from thos guy, he seriously knows what's up with the industry
Another great interview. When i watch Ben do an interview somewhere in my mind I am thinking - god i hope he doesnt become unhinged and ask the crazy questions that i know are brewing away in his mind 😂. You haven't let me down yet ...
❤
JeffM made me come here to leave a comment saying this video is amazing and it deserves more views
Wow, TSR in '81. I would have been seven, so that era of TSR's brand of D&D is my foundation for so many things - TSR in general really, good library overall for a commodore kid. So yeah, Bruce huh. You could say he's OG af, right?
Excellent interview, reminds me of CultureScape
I love this type of interview, thank you for doing it
Great interview! Really interesting to hear about life behind the scenes at Bethesda
The part about BG3, re: how at Bethesda they simply don't design games that way and that you are meant to see everything. That's why none of their games actually have consequence much to the choice you make and sort of play like offline MMOs. Like a checkbox of quests you tick off one after another until you're done. Which is particularly unfortunate in Fallout, as Fallout was a series all about character choice and consequence and branching quests. See New Vegas, which takes FO3 and improves on it tenfold. But Fallout 1 is a game that is this open as a consequence of that, it can be completed in well under 20 hours... and the Big Bad simply "defeated" via dialogue. Which also isn't Bethesda's aim as he argued.
In the grander scheme, that's most AAA studios though. For every Arkane who even lets you skip their most fantastic levels in there entirelly -- there's ten studios making damn sure that all the huge money they pour into the game, you're going to see all of that no matter what. And I think that's going to be more severe as time goes on and budgets increase further. Even CD Projekt, their games are more like movies with some COYA sections, the actual playing experience, quests in particular, are completely linear.
I mean, you can sequence break quests in BG3, and the game still finds a way to carry on. NPC may die in a fight (not even caused by you) and the quest they are connected to, you may never find it due to them being dead... this stuff should be the start into a bright future, embracing games as the interactive mediums they are (similar to Looking Glass Studios games back then, who had a similar philosophy underneath). But likely won't be much with but a few exceptions.
Starfield: We don't want to lock content off to anyone, so we lock every thinkable option off to the player except for one.
I feel like this "locks off" more than it actually enables.
In BG3 you can do whatever option YOU want. You are free to do as many fun things which "lock off content" as you want. Because it leads to alternative fun content and you can always make another playthrouh in which you do end up choosing the previously locked off routes.
Content is never locked off in a game, it's not like you are only allowed to do one playthrough.
Even in Bethesdas previous titles I would do multiple playthroughs, for me invalidating their "we don't want to lock stuff off" approach.
In Fallout 4 for example I completely committed to nuking the railroad when I met them.
I was playing an evil character and their condescending reaction to my answer "no I wouldn't sacrifice my life for a robot" made me want to nuke them right then and there.
I was glad I was able to do that, It was very fun. I knew that the whole railroad questline was now locked off, and I appreciated that.
Please rethink this approach Bethesda, or at least make sure the quests are fun enough (for me) not to need player choice. The Dark Brotherhood in Oblivion is one of my favorite Bethesda questlines.
Good interview. Good stories. Punch cards. OMG. 723-card-pick-up-and-sort was a great game. ;D
It’s sad to see what little awareness he has of how disappointing Starfield was. I had hoped to hear about my favorite Elder Scrolls game, Morrowind, but of course he left during that very period of Bethesda - still, I enjoyed the perspective he had for the years he was there. My main worry is other designers also not seeing the problems with Starfield and them thinking that ES6 is going to be good in Creation still; they need a new engine, badly.
No wonder modern Bethesda is massively outdated and creatively bankrupt, they're all the same people from 15-20 years ago making the same kind of game, with little to no contact with their massive audience, no creative or fresh input outside of what Todd deems appropiate and with the hubris through the roof after selling and reselling Skyrim in every system imaginable. Starfield being the culmination of such boring design philosophy totally clicks after hearing this.
Loved the interview though, very informative and despite what I think of some of Bethesda's design decisions, Mr Nesmith is one knowledgeable and well spoken man indeed. And Ben knocked it out of the park with the questions, very nice.
Where to find channels that do interviews with designers or devs from big studios or doing some backstage of some cool games? I would listen more insides from Bethesda, how they work how they setup processes? Where can i find stuff like that? Not “cool stories” but more tech stuff.
Favorite old school computer game was the first color game I played, which was Ultima VII Part Two: Serpent Isle. Plenty of console gaming before hand, Atari and Nintento, but regarding computers, that was the one game that got me to ditch consoles and get in the PC games, which I bought my own around 1997. Favorite games of all time are Oblivion and Skyrim. Best games I have played. 3rd best is Red Dead Redemption 2, which is outstanding for a 3rd person game, which I generally will not play
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So much Todd simping.
Based on the last few games, I think Todd is slowly but surely losing touch with what the mainstream gamer wants. When BG3 has untold success with complexity at its bedrock with RPG in full display, I think the mainstream gamer is ready for more than what they have been shovelling.. Especially the load simulator game we got recently.
Fun to hear that he likes Might and Magic! I love the series and nobody ever talks about them.
Dark messiah was one of the games ever made.
Erm no, you don't get extra credit for having fewer bugs. You are buying a product and having it work as advertised is the base standard. If a car company makes four models where the engine had a 5% chance to stop on a cold day, you wouldn't congratulate them if their fifth iteration addressed that issue and only had a 2% chance. Over a (100 day) winter that's still 2 days your car can't get you to work. In practice, people accept that modern games are horrendously complex pieces of machinery and are forgiving of some bugginess, but never forget that every instance of jank renders the game less than is advertised. Bethesda should and have received credit for minimizing a problem, but minimizing a negative will never flip over into being a positive feature.
34:00 to be fair, its basically fallout in space so tutorial wise most ppl already knew how to play it. Overtutorialising can be more annoying than no tutorials.
So it’s the damned MMO crowd who are the blame for us getting 76 instead of FO5.
Eh, it would've really been pushing it to put Fallout 5 in that engine. Personally I think that would've been disappointing for the next mainline entry, whereas 76 is side entry.
We would've never had FO5 don't kid yourself... But thanks to F76 it will now take at the very least VERY VERY LEAST 2034.
Love from Juicehead!
As someone who may or may not "slightly" dream about working at Bethesda, seeing interviews like these are AWESOME!
1:39:05 we all will
I like what he had to say about the exploration aspect not totally hitting right for everyone. The game is doing a lot of things. Its very ambitious in that it has so many systems and elements that require a lot of dedication to get right. This is something that I don't think everyone takes into consideration when critiquing the game. A game that doing so much is inevitably not going to 100 percent stick the landing in every area. It's not just an exploration game. It's doing many things. But hopefully Bethesda will heavily support this game for years to come and improve the experience as much as they can.
Making a game do everything like that stretches it thin, making it all bland. Focusing on core aspects of the game and going further with those makes games fun. If you're a jack of all trades, then you're a master of none.
imma watch later
yeah, 1 formula for all the planets all right.... Of course I understand the principle, the first time you step down on random planets, it has a lot of atmosphere. There's points of interests on the horizon and the biomes vary. But after a few it just really wears off and is not interesting or fun. The tailored, crafted content is the best stuff in Starfield.
Hey, I remember Nesmith. He was the designer of thieves guild questline of oblivion. Tbh his works along with Pagliarulo were also downgrade from their predecessors like Kirkbride and Peterson. Factions in oblivion and later games felt childish with no real depth. They also abondoned the old lore in favour of simple questionable lore with no mature themes like previous TES games. Shivering Isles' portrayal of madness felt like a parody and to the point of being comical. He is also responsible for that stupid radient quest system in skyrim. He is one of the streamliners responsible for the degradation of Bethesda
The faction in old games like Morrowind is mad overrated and Morrowind bros are the most obnoxious part of the Elder Scrolls community. I prefer the factions in Oblivion. I prefer Shivering Isles. It was meant to be comical. Concepts like madness and chaos are kind of ridiculous and divorced from the way real believable humans behave. I don't know what you wanted.
@@dickthebirthdayboy2132 I just simply wanted a realistic and gritty take on serious issues like madness. Morrowind was alien and exotic which added to its atmosphere. Cyrodill felt like a typical LoTR world. Project Tamriel's version of Cyrodill based on the old lore seems a like much more interesting place to me
@@DaoistYeashikAliAgree. The way you can join all factions and become the leader of every faction in Oblivion sucked.
Morrowind had real faction dynamics and rivalries.
With him leaving and Kurt TES 6 is doomed
Please interview Kurt Kuhlman!!
I’ve played Skyrim for triple the amount of hours and most of them were modded on and Xbox, so needless to say, it was broken for me too. Playing on PC was night and day. I think it crashed like 3 times over the course of 6 months. Xbox would crash like 3-5 times per session.