Oh it all screams sinking ship. The amount of time, manpower and resources they squandered is staggering. To put it into perspective, Fallout 3 had a crew of 70 people on it. Skyrim, 100. Fallout 4, also ~100. 76... 130. And this time around, they were more scattered around the globe than usual. The ones for earlier releases were generally unified. This was a huge undertaking. Hard to believe looking at the result, but it actually was. It may even have been their grandest undertaking to date.
So none of these little stunts surprise me. They are pissing money away, with less to show for it each time. It is flat-out wrong. So wrong. But they really do have no choice. They probably cannot afford to lose more. It's not greed. Just desperation.
I mean, shareholders are probably really gonna want to know where their money went. Now the burden is on the players who used to love and respect the dev to keep them from losing too much to recover. Sad state of affairs really.
Worse yet, this is a time when Bethesda really needs to step up and remind people of what they can really do and just stop pissing everything away. Losing GOTY to Witcher 3 back when FO4 came out was only the beginning. I can think of a couple of future ARPG's that are likely going to crush anything they've done in years. It used to be they were THE go to for the types of games they made. Not so anymore. Wonder what CD Projekt Red is up to these days...
It's a really slippery slope. Sometimes I really think we are witnessing the fall of a giant and it is too late. If they release another lazy, half-baked megatitle with the same dogshit engine... oh god help them. After this and all of their half-hearted apologies nobody is going to stand for that. If this new IP doesn't hold up, if the new Elder Scrolls isn't an absolute breath of new life, things will never ever be the same for them. This shit is serious now. They've had some flops on lesser titles in the past. But this is really egregious. People cherish this franchise as one of the best of all time. All of the laziness and money grabbing, from a fanbase that has been HUNGRY for a new full-fledged Bethesda release for years. All of this time watching the same game come out over and over again. And now, instead of the thing we've all been waiting for, we've gotten this debacle. Things are only going to get more real for them if this continues. All of the faith and goodwill they have amassed over the past decade is now on the line. And in its wake, they are floundering magnificently. It'd be funny if only I didn't actually care. It is painful to see this shit from them. Anybody but them, you know? People used to say they were one of the few good ones left.
At this point, I would be happy to never see another Fallout from them, ever again. It hasn't really been Fallout in several fundamental ways since FO3 anyway. The games themselves haven't been bad. They just aren't good as Fallout games. They completely fail when it comes to those types of choice-based storylines and gameplay mechanics. They still haven't figured out the speech system fer chrissake! Personally I kind of enjoy the dumb exploration/combat/loot cycle their "Fallout" games take you through. They just miss so many awesome opportunities as Fallout games. They don't truly want to make those games, so why butcher an IP in the name of just doing what they want with it? In what universe did they see Fallout fans wanting 76? Like, even if it was good for what it was, it's not what any of us wanted in a Fallout game...
If they can take what they've done with FO4, gut all of the crappy story stuff and focus on the action/exploration/lore based gameplay, and build their new IP around it, I think they'll do okay with the audience that liked Fallout 4. I'd give it a chance. And if it's good I'll play the fuck out of it. Give Fallout to somebody who wants to make a Fallout game. Because christ dude, this shit is going to kill them one day. People are sick of watching them manhandle their beloved franchise. With the direction they've gone, there is absolutely no reason why they *have* to be Fallout games. If anything, all of the half-assed attempts to make the games Fallout-like only hold them back and piss everyone off. I swear they keep it for the sake of the hype that just mentioning a new Fallout game brings. But all of the years of lies and broken promises have made that a lot less viable. Nobody's gonna continue buying these because "Hey, new Fallout!" now.
