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The winds were in favor for Starfield to be another generational RPG from the genre titans at Bethesda - industry maestro Todd Howard was in charge, it had an enormous budget with most estimates tripling that of Skyrim's, and the developers had more time to work on it than any previous Bethesda title - but there's no denying that its legacy pales in comparison to games like Skyrim, Oblivion, and Morrowind.
Former Bethesda loremaster and Skyrim co-lead designer Kurt Kuhlmann, who was around until about the time Starfield released, says that's because Bethesda Game Studios simply got too big for lead developers like Todd Howard to manage while also having direct, hands-on input on the game.
"I was working directly on [Skyrim], and I was a lead," he told PC Gamer. "That was how all the leads worked then, and so I was directly working with all the people, all the quest designers, myself." He added that Skyrim marked a turning point in that regard, which was "one of the main things" that drove him to leave the company in 2023.
"Todd [Howard] was still the creative director [on Starfield]," Kuhlmann added, "and he had the leads, but the leads now included studio heads and producers and were from multiple studios."
Ultimately, Kuhlmann reckons "the main problem with Starfield is it didn't fully cohere as a game," which I could definitely see being an issue when there are so many different creatives, all with their own unique visions, clashing for visibility in a single project. In other words, too many cooks in the kitchen made Starfield a dull boy.
Kuhlmann clarified that he thinks Howard is a "very good project lead," but with BGS's rapid growth, he would often "get pulled away from the game" and "that would really hurt the game."
As big, publicly traded studios continually push toward infinite expansion, we're likely to continue to see this issue in highly anticipated releases that, on paper, are being made by the same development teams as previous, beloved games.
With The Elder Scrolls 6 still a while off, there's some hope that BGS was able to course correct after Starfield's lukewarm reception, but on the other hand, it's hard to imagine a viable solution when key creatives like Howard are presumably already juggling so many plates and wearing so many different hats. I guess we'll find out in 2030 or whenever Elder Scrolls 6 actually comes out.
One thing we do know: Todd Howard says Elder Scrolls 6 "most definitely" has more trees than Skyrim, and now I'm pinning Valenwood to the location conspiracy board
