I keep a small hope alive that someone, and at this point I've pretty much lost all faith in Bioware being this someone and with Lionhead doing Fable Legends... well that is also a lost cause, but I hope someone will make a game that introduces us to a new fantasy world and competes with Elder Scrolls. KoA: Reckoning for all of its problems, was a game that had potential and I believe that IP was snatched up, even if its MMO assets were lost (which is probably for the best anyway). I feel as though the success of Skyrim and Fallout should serve as a beacon for talented game developers who want to create rich and engrossing experiences.

I feel like a lot of things are getting in the way of that however. I remember Todd taking questions on the success of Fallout Shelter and someone asked why bother with regular game development when you can make crazy amounts of money with these freemium titles. He shot the question down, but it made me think about the amount of time and resources you would need to pour into making a great game and whether or not it was worthwhile for companies to do that in the advent of the mobile game explosion. I feel like that shift is what drove the development of Fable Legends in all honesty. I hope the game tanks and we see a quick return to a more traditional game that can compete with Fallout and Elder Scrolls.

The wait between games doesn't bother me at all. I just dislike that Bethesda is the only company that seems capable or interested in making good open world games. I feel like a little friendly competition would work wonders.

Why must Fallout exist? Yuck.

It's only purpose is to delay Beth's real franchise, it seems.

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is competition for Bethesda Game Studios, while The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is not a open world RPG video game in the style of Bethesda Game Studios open world RPG video games. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt looks very nice in some lands of the video game world map you explore and the story quests are amazingly well written.

If Todd actually said that, he's clearly missing the entire mark that made Morrowind fun. If anything, he's partially to blame for not banking on that and turning it back into generic fantasy through Oblivion. Skyrim at least tried to subvert that, if only a little bit. So basically, him calling it a generic fantasy series is true in part of it being entirely (or partially) his fault.

^Eh, the Witcher 3 ended up just being another...well, Witcher game, and not the thing that would redefine the genre in any sense of the word. The only thing it has going for it I find is a fairly well designed world space (And by that, I mean scale.), but that's really about it. Aside from the whole "We gotta make the game bigger!" competition which is kind of a foregone conclusion, I'm not seeing anything competitive about the Witcher series, especially since TES is not going to have to deal with it in all likelihood.

I felt exactly the same way as you do, for many years. I refused to even buy Fallout 3. I didn't get it until 2013. To my astonishment, I found that I actually liked it. I spent six months, from last October to April of this year, playing it non-stop. I even bought it for a friend.

I didn't like it originally, because I loved fantasy settings. I liked elves and dragons and magic. I didn't like the idea of a sci-fi-influenced, post-apocalyptic setting. But once I got into it, I discovered that Fallout is just as much a fantasy as the Elder Scrolls games. There are guns instead of bows and Vertibirds dropping off Enclave soldiers instead of Dragons. Rivet City and Megaton feel more like fantasy towns to me than even New Sheoth or Sadrith Mora.

Then there is the issue of a different gameplay system. But I have come to appreciate that too. I prefer the Elder Scrolls' skill-use system over Fallout's Dungeons-and-Dragons-style XP system, but it's nice to have a change of pace once in awhile.

This has GOT to be a smokescreen, no way can they be so blind as to how hard ESO is failing, especially after the console disaster.

How is it a smokescreen? The Elder Scrolls Online is developed by ZeniMax Online Studios not Bethesda Game Studios.

2016 belongs to Fallout 4 and more likely 2017 will also belong to Fallout 4.

Incidentally, it was Fallout 3 that sort of restored my faith in Bethesda quite a bit when it comes to general world building after the mess I found Oblivion to be. It spurred me into getting KoN and Shivering Isles, which was a good thing, since it was then realized they upped their game in that department after how bland Cyrodiil ended up being as far as world space goes.

My paraphrase doesn't capture his meaning very well. He contrasts Fallout with the Elder Scrolls around the 7:20 mark in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMCIfHNPDPA with someone from IGN. His negative comment about the Elder Scrolls starts around 7:40.

Todd says, "Some of our stuff has had more style than others," but that some of their stuff is "too generic." I think his meaning is that Fallout's style consistently stands out, whereas the Elder Scroll's style lacks consistency.

Ah, that's a fair point. Given that this was before Skyrim, it at least shows that they tried to solidify the more Morrowind-esque artstyle within Skyrim. I'll take back my previous statement then.

Read the last sentence in the third paragraph in the OP's quote.

I think will see the next game sometimes late 2017. Just like fallout I think a spring/summer announcement and release late fall/winter.

I hope they are actually working on it.

As I said, obvious smokescreen. There's simply NO WAY they are so incompetent as to not see how big of a fail ESO is, especially with the console disaster, and the damage it has done to the name Elder Scrolls. A soon but not too soon release of TES:VI is pretty much the chance they have to rebuild the damage (apart from giving ZOS an immediate cease and desist order, of course).

I've been thinking about this possibility too. More so out of just wondering how long BGS can keep up just developing two series. If they do go the route of a new IP, I would imagine that they would continue to have ZeniMax Online or other studios develop more TES content to keep cashing in on that, but I think it's more likely that if they want to really take on a new IP they would expand their team so they didn't have to delay the next TES game.

I was waiting for fallout 4. So, it just sad, not super duper sad

While it is true that oblivion and skyrim were both fairly generic, morrowind had an edge with its unique world and creatures. If we go to elseweyre there's the chance to get that uniqueness back.

Anywhere but Hammerfell, Skyrim, or Cyrodiil would be unique I didn't include High Rock because technically Bretons are part elf so it could still be unique.

I think there's a very good chance that Todd Howard and crew would like to get off the treadmill, and work on something totally different from their two mainstay IPs from the past 15 years. http://www.express.co.uk/entertainment/gaming/584490/Fallout-4-Bethesda-E3-Xbox-One-PS4-Fallout-Shelter-Apple

Could be a smokescreen, but I'm not ruling out that we'll be looking at a new BGS IP in about 3 years...