Given the trajectory of the series (and Bethesda games in general) I have this creeping fear that it's going to be even more watered down than Skyrim is. It seems like with every game Bethesda releases they strip away RPG elements and dialogue and "streamline" everything, effectively making their beloved RPG franchises into action-adventure games like they did with Fallout 4. What are the odds they turn it around and actually make the excellent first person open world RPG the series deserves?
My dream is for TES to get it's own New Vegas, a return-to-form RPG from an outside company that actually knows how to write an interesting video game
I have fun with games like Skyrim too, I'm not saying it's unplayable garbage or anything. I've got like 400 hours in it. I think probably my biggest gripe with both Skyrim and Oblivion is that they feel extremely railroady, you start the game and it's immediately like "holy shit you're the chosen one go save the world" and then you've got the main quest breathing down your neck the entire game while you try to enjoy side content. Compare that to Morrowind or New Vegas, where you're dropped off via boat or walk out of Doc Mitchell's with a plot thread you can choose to follow, or you can choose to entirely fuck off in a different direction and join or guild or do whatever else you feel like. When one of the most popular mods for both Oblivion and Skyrim dramatically alters the intros of the games to cut that shit out I feel like Bethesda should probably learn a lesson from that
Adding on to this to say that I think the reason NV sticks out so much to me is that it gives a huge amount of freedom to build the character you want to roleplay, both in it's systems and it's story. Non-combat skills like Medicine and Barter actually feel impactful outside of their small niches by affecting how your character can speak to people. Compare that to Skyrim where your character options feel like melee, ranged, or spells. The speech skill is a total joke. Any character can complete any questline in the game. A 2h wielding barbarian can become headmaster of the college of winterhold. Nothing matters. I just want them to bring meaningful skills back :doomjak:
Questlines should get locked off based on decisions and other questlines IMO, if they cant make the character builds interesting enough to feel different and meaningful this at least would force some kind of character identity just based on what you've actually done in the game, rather than always being the archmage, head of both the dark brotherhood and thieves guild at once, noted war hero who decided the political fate of Skyrim etc etc etc but this time you use a bow in actual gameplay instead of a sword. Like the Thieves Guild arent going to see the fucking Archmage stroll up and go "Hello fellow law breakers, how do you do?" and not instantly think that this is some kind of trap to fuck over the guild.
And yes self imposed restrictions exist but I have no self control, Im a dummy with ADHD if I see a quest the game lets me do Im going to do it, and the average player doing the game first time isnt going to have meta knowledge of what quests to avoid in order to keep a coherent character going either. Bethesda are so fucking lucky to have their modding thralls making their games replayable in an interesting way because otherwise there really isnt a huge reason to replay Skyrim unless you missed something by accident, everything just kinda feels the same.