Maybe free roam mode would be more open world by unlocking locations that are usually locked until you do a certain quest and story mode would be more linear with more areas locked down, requiring you to take certain things in certain order? Perhaps story mode would require a certain race of character, or maybe even a certain character, like FO, whereas roam mode would allow you to be any character you wanted?

Just guessing here and by no means implying that I would favor such a thing.

Ew, I'm certainly not in favor of such a thing.

Yes, that makes sense. And I suppose a "free roam mode" could also disable main-quest-specific dialogue (and certain items, like the Amulet of Kings) as well, couldn't it? If it did that, I might actually be in favor it.

In Fallout 3, for instance, I start most of my characters at the vault exit, which allows me to make up new backstories for them. And I am annoyed by references to James. If free roam mode eliminated that kind of thing there might be some value to it.

Yes, that annoys me in FO too. I like hearing Three Dog comment about stuff my character has done when he's vague about who did it, which he sometimes is, saying things like "there have been reports that some good Samaritan" did thus and such to save someone. But when he starts calling my character's dad by name and attributing feelings to my character that he may or may not have, saying things like "James, if you are out there, your son misses you" it really grates on my nerves.

So whenever we want to play the main quest we will be forced to play it with a fixed character? If that is your proposal, then no. God no. Never.

I kind of like the idea of a free roam mode where the main quest is unavailable, but maybe certain aspects of it are visible in game, like in Skyrim, for instance, at some point, maybe triggered by character level or something, the next time the character passes by the Western Watchtower, it would have been destroyed and a dragon skeleton might be there, so we could see the effects of the main quest, but not be the driving force behind it. Dragons might then start attacking randomly and spawn at word walls, and your character could interact with the dragons, collect bones to make armor, but would not be able to absorb souls or words from word walls.

Well, fixed to whatever degree BGS decides.

Though, it is worth pointing out that previous TES protagonists have been fixed to a certain degree. For instance, one can't end up in Vvardenfell without having been sent by the Emperor. Nor can one defeat Alduin as a non-Dragonborn even though it is theoretically possible to do so.

And then of course, there is the CoC who appeared in Uriel's dream.

I don't understand why you would need a free-roam mode when you could simply just ignore the main quest. All they need to do is write the quest with a low player agency at the beginning. Make it more so you have to discover the main quest instead of it being thrown in your face like Oblivion and Skyrim.

My point wasn't just that it was just the game of the year in 2015 but most awarded game ever, so saying you hope TES6 doesn't stoop that low is a stupid statement. They're different games and do have different design philosophies and priorities but at the same time they're both open world RPG's and do share a lot as-well. If TES can look at some of the reason the Witcher was so popular things like; writing, world design, graphics, and over-all polish(heh). The Witcher has phenomenal writing with both it's main and side quest far above Beths, you could say that's because they use a preconceived character and not a blank slate like TES which I would say is a fair but useless point. It may make it easier but doesn't excuse poor writing. The Witcher's world was large, beautiful, and realistic. It's 3 time the size of Skyrim, although you may or may not like the setting in some areas it's beautiful designed Skellige can be absolutely breathtaking. It's also very realistically built for a fantasy world, you have cities and towns that actually feel like cities and town, the cities even had different districts such as the slums outside Novigrad and even large farms surrounding it where the food supply would come from, even small details like the way the wind would blow the leaves or grass around or the way light would shine in through gaps in buildings was amazing. The Witcher also has amazing graphics, you can bring up how they were downgraded from what was shown at E3 which is true but doesn't change how amazing the ones we got still were and even a lot of high end PC's had trouble running it on Max. Compare that to FO4 which looks very marginally better than Skyrim which is a game 4 years older. The fact that the most popular mods for TES games tend to be graphic ones shows there's something lacking. Then there's simply polish things like TW3 releasing with minimal bugs, it definitely had some but not near the scale that every OW Beth game seems to release at. Things like the Witchers animations looked great from running and rolling around, combat, and especially facial animations. TW3 was a game that aimed high promised a lot and hit the mark better than Robinhood could dream to which is why so many consider it not only a great game but a favorite and not only one of the best RPG's ever made but one of the best games in general ever made.

At that point, I'd wonder why not make two separate games if the two modes are going to be designed so differently. Feels like it'd be a recipe for disaster, splitting the devs' focus between nonlinear exploration-based gameplay and linear story-based gameplay, resulting in neither being as good as they could be.

Those don't really say anything about your character, though (except for the Dragonborn bit, which I'd point out is something I see complained quite a bit about SKyrim forcing it down your throat like it did, leaving no narrative ambiguity). They say what other people have done that led to your character being where they are, but don't imply anything about your character's background, personality, wants, or needs.

I think the only way it would work well in a single game is if the difference between the two modes was how you experienced the main quest, either as hero, or as just another character in the world, who may get to tangentially interact with some of the main quest events but would not be directly influencing them. Like if Skyrim had a free roam mode, you would start as a spectator in the crowd at Helgan, instead of being on the cart. You may get to witness some of the events, but not all of them. You would get to kill dragons, but not absorb their souls or absorb words from word walls. You might at some point witness the aftermath of main quest events, like the Western Watchtower dragon attack or something like that.

Not saying Bethesda *should* go this direction, but it is interesting to consider the possibilities.

Solid points on both sides, honestly. While I have my criticisms of Fallout 4 I do appreciate the effort Beth put into its story and characters. Fallout 4 has the most intimate companion relationships of their previous titles and an overall solid story involving branching main story paths with morally grey joinable factions. They also experimented with a VP and cinematic camera to support their story presentation.


They are trying and with the incredible success of The Witcher 3 I can only see these aspects improving in the future of Beth games.


And I highly recommend TLOU - Literally the only game that has brought tears to my eyes.

I'm sure it's a nice recommendation but it's Playstation only. I'll never be playing it.

Only the main story of Witcher 3 was interesting, the side quests were mostly repetitive and after a while utterly boring. The world might have looked alive, but it certainly didn't feel like it. Everything was pretty, sure, but the lack of substance was there for everyone to see: from the cardboard -npcs to the repetitive and soulless landscapes. Absolutely no sense of exploration and wonder whatsoever.


So when it comes to world design, npcs and immersion bgs should stick to their own thing and look as far away from witcher as possible. W3 is a great game, but those who wish for the ES series to be anything like it really seem to struggle with understanding the fundamental difference between the two series and more importantly, what makes TES what it is.


As for W3 being one of the best games ever made? Simply delusional, not even close to top 100

It was already on top of 20..

the witcher 3 you must be kidding

the witcher 3 is NOT a open world rpg game it is a linear hack and slash with a endless parade of cinematic cutscenes to tell the story

TES VI should be a open world RPG game where you can do what you want , go where ever you want and whenever you want and be who ever you want witcher 3 has none of those , , instead it forces you to do all those things with little other options , if you don t you die in that game and ll the side quests they not optionzal you need to do them for the xp points to level up so you can continue with the maiin quest and do not let me start with the character you have to play he is probably the worse narcistic psychopatic freak i ever seen in a game and pretty stupid aswell

technixal it isa good game , but i am^probably one of the few people that doesn t like the game actually i hated it so much i delelted it after 60 hours or so

basicly i wish TES to stay unique and not a copy of another succesful franchise

he probably mean graphic

Yeah seriously. I was thinking the same thing.

Being the most highly awarded game of all time is normal....almost every year. The latest hit more often than not sets all sorts of records. It happens in music, movies, games, you name it. We're in an expanding market, with more and more people getting involved all the time. The kind of record sales that made the Beatles legendary would be considered mediocre today, movies regularly outgross the mega-hits of the previous few years, and a game made 5 years ago that sold fantastically well would be overshadowed by a lot of games that merely sold "well" today. If Witcher 3 didn't outsell a 5 year old game, I'd consider it either a niche title or a poor selling game.

About the only thing all those awards tell me is that it either did better than FO4 (somewhere between a complete sandbox and a "fixed protagonist" game, which makes the comparison less meaningful), or paid a lot more for advertising to the companies the award givers work with. Anything made before the last couple of years needs to be "adjusted" for the size of the market at the time, in order to make a valid comparison.

I suppose that "Awards" are like "Achievements": they're something that people try for, but are ultimately meaningless. "Congratulations, you're only the 3,487th player to do this rare and difficult feat....this week".

Is this true? Does Witcher rely on a parade of cutscenes to tell its story?


It's been so long since I've played a game with a cutscene, I'd forgotten how hackneyed and abhorrent they were. Cutscenes make me want to puke all over my keyboard.

Lets just have cdproject red and bethesda do there own things I have enjoyed morrowind oblivion and skyrim immensely! Each game has it's own fantastic atmosphere that has left a unique impression on on me from my time playing them.

I've played witcher 2 and it was a good and beautifull game I enjoyed it so much that I decided to get every achievement for the game I'm stillin playing witcher 3 its big and has a lot of game time that you can play through. Though that can be a negative in my case I'm getting a little bored of playing as geralt.

I won't be able to play it myself but I've seen a good amount of it due to a friend. Didn't cry though. Then again, I never got invested into it and such. Though, I've cried before due to a game and that game was Undertale for me. So I know it is a possibility.

We couldn't predict anything about ES 6 for sure, I doubt Beth will learn anything from their own mistake aka Fallout 4, if they don't, their loyal fans will begin to doubt them even more.

It will only be considered a mistake in the business world when sales go down rather than up compared to their previous release. Until that point has been reached they won't be worried about anything.

I have no idea what the sales figures for any of the games are, so I don't know whether that point has been reached yet or not.

Personally, I haven't played 4, so I can't speak to whether or not I would consider it deserving of being a failure. I refuse to judge it positively or negatively based on second hand info. And even if I had played it and turned out not to like it that wouldn't make it bad, that would only make it not my cup of tea.

TES VI will probably be just like FO4 in terms of "innovation" truth is they have no reason to try better or put more money/people on the game as their games will sell anyways.