Completely agree. BioWare started it’s downward trend when it thought it could cash in on MMORPG billions by creating Star Wars: The Old Republic. Don’t get me wrong, Bioware made awesome games until ~2010. They were bought out by EA in 2007, and that is where we can clearly see that passion was lost. Good games still came out, but they weren’t great.

I will always hold a special spot in my heart for the Elder Scrolls. I’ve played since Daggerfall in the late 90s. I got into Fallout later, but went back and played the originals (except for tactics). A lot of people hate on Skyrim as being janky, but I was there for the original release. Did it have issues? Of course, and it still does. But this was 11 / 11 / 2011 we are talking about. Skyrim was doing things that no one in gaming was doing well, and they told a good story to boot.

The issue that I have with most studios is that they step away from the ideas of furthering or completing a story just because they can’t think of a new gimmic or mechanic to make it hugely profitable. They need those profits to justify the staggering wages paid to the CEO’s. Not to the writers, programmers, or artists.

So Bethesda lost a lot of love when they (like BioWare) attempted to cash in on MMORPGs with Fallout 76.