We'd all like The Elder Scrolls 6 and Fallout 5 to come out sooner rather than later. To be honest, I'd settle for proper acknowledgement of either at this point. But a former Bethesda developer believes if the RPGs were to come out too quick, fans would get tired of back-to-back releases.
In light of Xbox reportedly pushing the company for faster turnaround on its major releases, Bruce Nesmith, the lead designer on Skyrim and contributor to Starfield, Oblivion, and more, thinks Bethesda going too hard could "risk fan fatigue." In his mind, the dev team needs to find a middle-ground.
"There is an old adage in software development about the process having three corners: resources, time, and quality,” Nesmith says to FRVR. "The studio decides two of them, which determines the third. If you lock down the resources and the schedule, that decides the quality you will achieve. If you lock down the quality and the schedule, that determines the resources you will need to complete the project."
He hammers in that, "You can't dictate all three, only two," and "over-committing to any one of the corners increases friction and becomes less effective." Making the pipeline too long leads to less productivity, as well. "Allowing ten years for a project creates a cycle of endless reinvention and ultimate failure," Nesmith adds.
Having been involved in Bethesda games from Daggerfall through to Starfield, Nesmith considers the sweet spot for launch dates to be shy of half a decade between big games. "Three years felt like the right amount of time to meet fan expectations," he says, adding that actually figuring out what people want is a "moving target."
But in the case of The Elder Scrolls 6, it's been nearly 10 years since Todd Howard first mentioned it, and the status of Fallout 5 is anyone's guess, some 11 years removed from its predecessor. Other studios seem to have similar project timelines.
Naughty Dog is taking around five to seven years per release now, with The Last of Us 2 having come out six years ago. Santa Monica Studio, home of the God of War games, tends towards four years per release, but that could be getting longer; God of War Laufey doesn't yet have a launch window.
Then, of course, we have GTA 6. Triple-A games are starting to take more time, and the tech and manpower involved are becoming larger and larger. So when the next big sequel you're waiting for comes out, make sure to enjoy it, because it might be a while before you get another.
