Pretty much. Honestly, I got Skyrim at the beginning of when I got my PS3 (in 2012). I hadn't really paid much attention to non mobile gaming for a long time before that (as I only had a PS2 and decided for budget reasons to just be happy with games on my phone).
I played Skyrim... I was totally enthralled. Read criticisms, agreed with tehm that would make it better. Have tried other games and haven't found any other than Bethesda games and Obsidian's game using Bethesda's engine that match anywhere close to the same joy I get out of Bethesda games. To be fair I did like Obsidian's take over Bethesda. But that's cause they took everything I love about Bethesda games (that you can't find in other games) and improved on the stuff I wish Bethesda was better on. I mean as much as I love Bethesda games, I love Fallout New Vegas far over the Bethesda games I've played (but part of why I like it is that it borrows what I like about Bethesda games). I want another Obsidian Fallout. But other than Obsidian using Bethesda's engine, I just haven't played any game that really gives me the same feeling/immersion.
Bethesda has their flaws, but their games are more than the sum of their parts and as a whole, no one else makes a game like it.
I feel the same way.
I agree with a lot of the criticisms levied against Skyrim. The combat is terrible, the random dungeons get repetitive, the vanilla UI is a war crime, the exploration relies too much on waypoints and map markers which makes it feel artificial, and in general it feels like Bethesda "consolized" the hell out of the game. Despite that, Skyrim still provides a kind of role playing simulation and sandbox you can't get in any other modern game, at least any game with its production values and especially on consoles. Of all the major first person games being made these days Fallout and Elder Scrolls are the only ones that fully feel like immersive sims except maybe Dishonored and Deus Ex HR. In the AAA space Bethesda get's the "you can do anything" in a way the other games just don't.
Fallout 4 looks like it's going to be more "streamlined" and a little more like an action game. There will probably be big things about it I won't like, but I'm just hoping it maintains that unique sandbox feel. I want to be able to have various systems smash together in unexpected ways, find unexpected solutions to problems, and in general just have a bunch of emergent gameplay come about.
At least I see Bethesda took some input from id and MachineGames for how to make a first person shooter. I just hope that in the future it takes more input on improving its games' flaws.