The title pretty much says it but I will elaborate in the spoiler tags.

Well, I predict further streamlining. It's inevitable, especially given the success of Skyrim. They're not going to do a 180 turn on their new target audience (the COD demographic).

Less mechanics, better graphics, continued hand-holding and level scaling, more money pretty much sums it up.

Fantastically pessimistic predictions, thanks. Though given the evidence I find it hard to argue.

I'm hoping they make it deeper. The whole streamlining bit is kind of pointless to use for marketing now. It's as streamlined as it gets.

However if they have a bigger team maybe they can include more of the features they want and make it streamlined on the surface yet have deeper mechanics and quests for those of us who want them.

Yeah, I'm a glass half full kind of guy. Hopefully the next installment is at least optimized for PC a lot more. One can only hope!

I'm a pessimist by nature, haha. Don't get me wrong, I would love for the series to go deeper, return to its roots. But Bethesda is as Bethesda does, and it's highly unlikely that we'll ever get another Morrowind, or even something similar.

That would be amazing to work for Bethseda.

Basically more streamlining and yes it could get more streamlined. All they gotta do is remove the magic bar and sta bar, remove the maximum weight carry, and a few others, cant think because all the examples where alrdy done in skyrim. More handholding, better graphics, netter landscape, less armor design choices, less weapon style choices, less magic choices.

And I base it all on the mantra at Bethesda that a employess there stated that easier is better. The easier they make stuff and more accessible with less consequences means a better product to which make money of the reputation of previous games.

Never underestimate what Todd Howard can do in the "now you don't have to worry about [x] anymore" department. The man is very resourceful.

depends on what direction games take overall and on the economic situation of the time. companies are less likely to take risks in a poor economy (which is why there have been so many sequels 2 and 3 lately). not sure what the ramifications will be in the future for the tes series but i am optimistic.

Im a bot scared [censored]less of what their gonna do with the next fallout. I see the writing on the wall for tes but my God, fallout though?

Tes is see being more actiony like God of war in a sandbox than as a rpg in sandbox. The next fallout makes me think of fallout 3 but with alot less...shiver...
Though I did like fallout 3 but eh its hard to explain.

I have to agree with the general sentiment in this thread.

The Elder Scrolls games have been getting streamlined since Morrowind (the first TES to have massive cutbacks in skills and other areas of the game from its predecessor, Daggerfall in this case), and I feel at this point in time that we must simply accept that continual streamlining is going to be something we'll see in every ES game from now on. The only area I feel that wasn't entirely streamlined in Skyrim was perks, but even then actual skills have been reduced yet again.


I consider myself a realist, not a pessimist. In the case of ES games the writing is one the wall; we all know how Skyrim's success will only continue the trend.

The sad thing is they don't have a worthy competitor in this niche, and that subtracts a healthy chunk of competitive motivation. I suspect at some point Todd Howard will become unsatisfied with the small increments his series is evolving and will try to push the envelope more than usual. Hopefully that will be in the writing, quest system and the implementation of lore. Skyrim is beautiful indeed, the media and a lot of gamers are in awe, but that's getting old as fast as the hardware generations. They are big, they are successful, it's a good timing to try more innovation.

I think the success of Skyrim indicates that they have hit a demographic 'sweet spot', and as such, the top brass at Zenimax will be disinclined to allow Beth the freedom to stray far from Skyrim's formula in future titles.

Once you made the series so popular, you can always take the new fanbase to deeper game mechanics. I seriously doubt the Skyrim newcomers fell in love with the series due to its light stats, handholding or simple dialogue. It's most likely the world exploration value, the lore, the art, the insane amount of content and the sense of freedom. I think they can safely go deeper into character customization, choices and consequences, branched dialogue, more approaches to quests, deeper npc portraying and interactions, and they won't alienate no one. Gamers are not as lazy as some irresponsible journalists, developers and publishers are trying to postulate in order to legitimate their own weaknesses.

You'd be surprised. I can't tell you how many of my friends I encouraged to play Morrowind only for them to skip all the dialogue, ask me what to do and look at me like a confused animal when I explained that they could do whatever they wanted. Those same people love Skyrim. People, in general, are not interested in the lore. They are not interested in character builds, they are not interested in RP. They want to swing a sword around and kill dragons. I'm not saying that there's anything wrong with that, but I think it explains the rather pessimistic responses in this thread. We're slowly coming to realise that we represent an ever decreasing minority. Future TES games will not cater to our tastes. It's sad, but understandable.

I agree with you.
TES isn't really TES anymore, its god of war - FPS!

I regret making this thread now lol.

Was hoping for optimism because unfortunately my line of thinking is similar to that of this threads.

TES VI: Summerset Isles announced!

Bethesda Softworks has, to the joy of countless fans from all over the world, finally unveiled their latest project. We bring you the first information about this new ambitious game. (Please refer to our earlier article http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Main_Page for information about the TES series.)

Taking the leap

"One of the things that always bothered us about the series was the complexity. Options lead to inequality and our games would be better off without that. So what could we do about this problem? Doesn't an RPG require choices? The solution we found is both satisfying and innovative. We have taken the leap."
- Todd Howard, executive producer

Todd Howard claims that despite continued attempts to fix the problem the TES series are still too complex. Players are flooded with choices and consequences of actions they could not even remember having done. "What we needed was what I call a 'player profile'. We know that many of our older fans like to roleplay, and we have given them just that in a new but more rewarding fashion." claims Todd.

The executive producer proudly showed us something revolutionary called 'player-profiling'. This new technique anolysed the feedback Bethesda was given about earlier games, and thus produced a 'player profile'. These profiles showed what characters the average fan wanted to roleplay. Bethesda Softworks acted accordingly and thus in TES VI everyone will be roleplaying the same characters. "I just wanted to clarify that this does not include apperance. Players can still choose a race and gender. In fact we have more customization options than ever including chest hair. Instead we have streamlined the game by merging more skills together to create three distinct characters that players will be able to roleplay. This way players will not be intimidated by the amount of choices. Skyrim was already a step in the right direction as it removed classes which were limiting. Classes simply caused confusion, I mean who wants to play a nightblade? (laughs)" - Todd Howard

These 'player profiles' are the reason why there will be no more skills in TES VI. Instead players will level automatically at various fixed points during the storyline. After leveling-up they will then be able to put points in one of the 3 attributes (Combat, Magic and Stealth). Putting points in one of the attributes will ,however, lower the other two which makes 'dual-classing' nearly impossible. " 'player-profiling' Showed that the majority of our fans wanted to play as either a warrior, a mage or a thief. They do not want to play as a battlemage so we decided not to annoy them with needless additional options." - Todd Howard.

Of course we had to ask if this would not limit the roleplaying options too much. Luckily Pete Hines (Public Relations) assured us that that would not be the case. "You can always imagine that you are playing a battlemage, right? Use some scrolls and pretend you are casting spells. Imagination, isn't that what roleplaying is all about?"

Stay tuned for another exciting installment because next week we will delve deeper into TES VI's combat. Todd already stated that we will get to use combo moves by smashing random buttons fast enough.

LMFAO. The bad part is I hear their voices when I read that...*shivers*

Best post in a long time.

Until there is an official announcement (and not rumors/conclusions jumped to) then all discussion for a possible future ES game will be kept in the "Beyond Skyrim" topic.