Skyrim was a gamechanger. To this day it has sold over 20 million copies and we are seeing its influence in Far Cry 3, Dragon Age Inquisition, The Witcher 3, the next Legend of Zelda, and likely more titles on the way. Ever since Morrowind, BGS has continued to create critically-acclaimed, innovative experiences that are unrivaled and adored by all. They have continued to raise the bar and to show what is truly possible and continue to push the boundaries of what video games are capable of. BGS has won GotY with every title they have developed since Morrowind and their fan base, reputation, and ambitions grow exponentially with each new title.

With this realization of the impact of Skyrim on the industry and where games are going in the future, my question is where does BGS go from here? BioWare is now trying to combine the best of open world and storytelling. CDPR is following a similar path by having a true open world like Skyrim, except with their own choice-driven, non-linear, mature storytelling as well. Even The Legend of Zelda is following suit by creating a large environment, and Zelda has always been known for engrossing stories with unforgettable characters. How does BGS compete with all these competitors now following in its footsteps?

Should BGS place more of a focus on storytelling? A voiced protagonist for their next game such as Mass Effect with Shepard? Should BGS even consider a cooperative experience similar to Far Cry 4? We are now in a generation where open world experiences are becoming the standard and TES/Fallout are finding themselves in situations where they are not as unique as they used to be. What do you believe BGS should do to rectify this? How can they remain pioneers and ahead of the rest of the industry? Open world has always been their expertise. It has been their focus for the last twenty years. Where do they go from here?

Post your ideas below. For Fallout 4 and The Elder Scrolls VI, BGS is going to have to really reinvent the wheel and create a new kind of open world experience we have never experienced before. Competition is good, and I hope it continuously pushes BGS to strive higher and do better.

I think they should expand on what they started to explore with hearthfire, it took maybe 2 steps in a certain direction, they should take 1 000 000 more steps in that direction. This is what's going to set them apart, I say sacrifice the big story line, which every game has and many do better than tes, and have the subtle happenings leading to non-structured adventures you write yourself with your actions.

In hearth fire we could build a house and recruit children, well what if to expand on that you could build a castle and recruit soldiers, or even build a town, build an empire, make friends and make enemies, etc etc.

except lore,

the option to have the player founding a Town or City (or empire) would be a major historical thing in the world of TES, something that Could not go unnoticed in Tamriels history books..

as Such, they would have to Canonize it one way or another, which would upset alot of players because "wait, he never built that!"


this is the same reason why we never see our Playable Characters reappear in other games (well, unless the Jauffre actually being the Eternal Champion crack-pot theory is true), and our Character simply fade into Obscurity.. because if they did reappear they would have to Canonize Race, Gender, etc..



so yeah, "lets build a town" will only happen with Mods I am afraid..



its tradition, and I don't mean to sound rude but, "lets go build our own Empire" is a terrible Idea..

"More of a focus" is not how I would phrase it. I don't think they've ever placed a focus on storytelling. I'd say they should place a focus on storytelling for the first time.

There are ten races and two sixes in the Elder Scrolls games. That means that every single line of player character dialogue would have to be recorded twenty times. The space required to store all this data would be prohibitive.

My sense of things, from reading these forums for a number of years, is that most of us do not want co-op. I'd say the people who want co-op are a small, very vocal minority. I don't think it would be worth the extra development time and money to implement a feature that, probably, most of us will never use.

My opinion: if Bethesda continues to make quality products they will continue to make money, regardless of what other companies are doing. In this sense I do not believe there is anything to "rectify."

There is one thing Bethesda needs to change, though. They need to improve their customer service. I love Bethesda and I love their games but their customer service has always been wretchedly, insultingly poor. They desperately need to begin to act like they care about their customers. They need to learn how to communicate with their customers and they need to service their products better.

OP read like a paid review.

I love Skyrim as much as the next guy, but "They have continued to raise the bar and to show what is truly possible and continue to push the boundaries of what video games are capable of."? Hardly. They do some good work, but its not exactly groundbreaking. They have many technical falts that other games excell at.

As I said I do love Skyrim, and all BethGS games, but lets be honest, from a technical standpoint, they have nothing exactly new...

Dragon Age had 4 races and only had 4 voice options. They just gave each playable race the same 2 voices for each gender. If they wanted to do a voiced protagonist, I think that option would work perfectly well.

I think this is very true Echo. Although I will say that I think they are finally getting to the point where they will have the technically best performing games that they can make. I believe all of their experience with open world games is going to culminate in experiences that are second to none, even if they aren't exactly "new".

Well, first of all. Skyrim is not adored by all, there are a huge number of people who hate it, and an even huger amount that simply enjoyed playing it but doesn't actually think much of it. For BGS to remain a success all they have to do is continue focusing on world building and even develop further in that area, maybe go back to having good dungeons (the ones in Skyrim did not really cut it imo). If they want their next games to be remembered they would have to develop in the storytelling aspect.

This too.

I agree, they do very well with that they have, and Skyrim was a major improvement over their previous games. Im not saying they do bad, they just don't do the best.

I will say that I think BethGS makes the most comprehensive modder friendly games and the best open world in terms of depth and complexity. Other open world games tend to be very bland.

I go love BethGS's games, and I plan on buying them all regardless of what they make, just to have in my collection.

Tes lore as in "this happened, then that happened" is by far the least interesting thing about the universe and I'd hate for that to be the barrier stopping this series from reaching it's potential, a potential clearly hungered for as evidenced by the popularity of skyrim. The story of skyrim isn't what sold 10s of millions of copies, it was the beautiful open world and the ability to forge your own path with your own unique character.

I don't even care specifically about making an empire or whatever, I just want more options to make your own story. I want to world to be grander and more passive. Not pushing you to their story, but interactive enough to allow us to make our own stories and ultimately our own fleshed out characters. MAYBE we want to be an emperor for our own massive empire, OR maybe we want to be a fishermen that has their own shop in the marketplace they sell seafood from, whatever, the point is allowing for that kind of variety in characters.

This means less "story telling" from bethesda, and more fleshing out of a world so we can do story telling. This is quite clearly the games strength and why it's special and considered the best game ever. You don't strengthen a weakness at the expense of your strengths. Their story telling is a weakness, and yet they have the best game of all time. Maybe we don't care as much about story telling as we think we do? What they did was dip their toe in to the kind of freedom I talk about, and the world went nuts for it. Build on the strength.

I think Bethesda will stick close to what they are already doing and will focus on trying to improve the world's realness and it's interaction with the player.

With regards to storyline, then i think too many are used to criticising without appreciation. There was nothing wrong with Skyrim's story. It is obvious that they will try and hire the best available script writing and voice overs. TBH i hated the Elven voice overs in Skyrim even though some were high budget celebs. I would have preferred more ethnic / exotic sounding voices.

Skyrim influenced Zelda, the series that started out in 1986, known for it's open worlds?

I wouldn't say that Skyrim influenced that much, it's sales did. It's basically the same game as the previous two, simplified and polished with, in my opinion, minimal improvements. Nothing really innovative in it. Skyrim isn't known for excellent quality, it's known for having loads of content, graphics and mods.

Dark Souls was innovative and fresh. It has and probably will continue to influence other games in the future.

So, basically, combine Elder Scrolls with the SIMs?
...

They can just expand more on what they've already been doing and still be hugely successful. Elder Scrolls and Fallout have huge fanbases that will stay loyal.

Buy I think they should make the game more immersive. As other people stated before on other threads. Make the NPCs more interesting. Make destructible buildings/environments etc. More factions. Just more of everything. Make the land bigger too. Multiple provinces.

This is just Turing into another ideas/suggestions thread.

LOL! No, pushing the boundaries would be releasing the 'true' Radiant AI as showed by Todd Howard at E3 before Oblivion. Skyrim is a great collection of many gameplay features (some made well, some made poorly), but none of them is revolutionary.