Bethesda has neither the engine nor the tools nor the coding talent nor the design talent for either Starfiled or a Skyrim sequel- sorry guys, but these are the simple facts.
The engine problem is the biggie. Tech has moved on. The POS Beth carefully nursed for Skyrim and Fallout 4 has seen stellar service, but *only* cos of the post release modding it enabled. Sadly the engine is now so dated, it is a joke to imagine further uses of it- yet that is exactly what Todd has stated is happening at Beth.
And no, despite what dribblers claim, you *cannot* retrofit code to this engine to keep it going in any acceptable form. Beth needs a new 'from scratch' open world engine- but no-one at Beth could possibly code such a thing.
What Beth *could* do is drop true open world, and use one of their other engines to do a region loading approach, which would work but wouldn't give gamers the experience they were hoping for. Then again some dribblers think the world of a game like Dishonored 2 is just as good as Skyrim- they cannot tell the difference- and Beth is now targeting the thickie part of the gaming audience, with knuckle-dragging rubbish like Fallout 76 and Rage 2 and Wolf 2.
I mean, just slap in lots of 'edgy' cut-scenes like in Wolf 2, and that's just as good- eh?
I'm lost why other pubs don't pick up the ball. Fallout 4 is as basic as it gets (I played it, I liked it, but really that's only cos Beth is the only one doing this form of game so there's no choice), yet it made a billion. Top of the line AAA profit for a single-player game.
Yet when other pubs do seeming go for the same market, we get awful no-hoper horrors like AC:O and the sequel AC:O, titles clearly made with the same amount of work, but with literally *zero* intelligence or gameplay. When I got to the first big city in Assassins Creed;Origins, I wanted to just shoot myself in the head, so bored and unchallenged did I feel. Yet there are gamers who cannot spot how sh-t AC:O is at every conceptual level- worse gamers who will defend Origins to the death, yet trash WatchDogs.
Bethesda is in a vile and cynical stage that it will never now escape. Yet Zenimax, run by a literal financial crook, will eventually want another Fallout 4 scale cash windfall. Todd planned to meet the need for greed with his MTX ridden games-as-a-service, but he is far too useless to do even this. All of Todd's built-from-the-ground for MTX projects have bombed, save Fallout Shelter- but in shelter's case that was more of a 'happy' accident.
The one MTX title that works that you may 'think' is Todd's, namely Elder Scrolls Online, has *nothing* to do with Todd. Zenimax set up a different company to make that game- suggesting even then, Zenimax knew how sh-t Todd really is.
A couple of years ago, Todd had an 'out'. To contract external third-party devs to make quick-n-dirty sequels to Skyrim and Fallout 4 on the Fallout 4 engine with the Fallout 4 toolset. These sequels would have been finished in 18 months at minimal cost, and each would have made at least 500 millions dollars- insane levels of profit against investment- industry best. But Todd still grinds his gears at the memory of Fallout New Vegas, and swore never again to allow outsiders to take any of his 'glory'.
Fallout 3 and Skyrim were the creative highs for Bethesda, and both are astonishing achievements. But Elder Scrolls fans noted how even Skyrim dumbed down a lot over the previous two titles. And this is the other issue- a loss of conceptual gameplay innovation at Beth.
Todd now thinks a 'good' game is always streamlined from the last one- in other words *less is more*. Critics asked "where's the effing game" about Rage 2- a title that had years of Todd's 'brainpower' put into it *after* it had already been mostly finished as a sequel to WB's Mad Max. Yet look at Rage 2 closely, and there's literally nothing there. Even when you drive the 'batmobile' there's nothing to do with the car (save a clone of the convoy raids directly taken from Mad max). No- in Rage 2 you shoot, and that's it. In Doom you shoot, and that's it. In Wolf you shoot, and that's it. In Fallout 4, well it was damned close to you shoot and that's it.
Todd's games are *so* streamlined, they are now like the 'Janet and John' books 6 year olds learn to read with, whereas once we could suggest Fallout 3 and Skyrim at least aspired to be 'adult novels'. And the drunk/stoner sofa crowd who form a good chunk of gamers are probably still at the reading level of 'Janet and John' anyway, so they seem to be happy with this.
Carmack once ruined iD with this self same thinking- that iD's earlier games were too 'complex' and that future titles must be dumbed down. Famously, Carmack's declaration that even pressing a button to open a door in a game was *wrong*. Ultimately iD collapsed, and the planet's most expensive game at the time, Rage, had to be completed at Bethesda, where it released to no acclaim whatsoever.
People once loved and trusted Beth cos it was seen as the very opposite to Carmack's awful game design philosophy. And it was. But it turns out the same seeds of 'madness' dwelt within.
Starfield, without an engine or design philosopy, is in development hell, where endless amounts of junk level and character work are being made and then trashed and then remade and then trashed again- repeat and wash, repeat and wash. Those of you with no inside understanding of how game dev works will project all kinds of nonsense 'explanations' as to why this cannot be true- but we already know it is.
Todd has an incentive (zenimax on his back) to have Starfield *apparently* underway in a shop that knows nothing they do on the title will have any value. Because the quality on the ancient engine would be a joke in 2019 or later, but that provides a neat excuse for the work never going anywhere- even forgeting there is no valid game design anyway.
Fallout 76 provides an explanation most of you *can* understand. All of Todd's shops worked on Fallout 76 for an age, when Todd had to tell Zenimax he had something 'better' than completing either Starfield, or a Fallout sequel or a Skyrim sequel. Why? Cos Todd knew he could just churn out a mega-expensive mindless non-functioning open world for Fallout 76, and argue that it was 'safe' to release it cos the MTX would make a fortune, and cos it wasn't all that different from Fallout 4.
Fallout 76 was a non-game, so didn't even have to reach any so-called quality level. It solved a problem for Todd- which was buying him more time before ther penny finally drops at Zenimax, and they finally kick him out- which they are going to do sooner rather than later- and even then I doubt Bethesda can be saved.
Todd's entire career now, until Zenimax cans him, will be giving interviews to the high profile mainstream gaming press about how amazing the non-existent Starfield and Skyrim sequel will be when they eventually appear. No release dates will ever be given, of course, for there are no viable projects of this description at Bethesda- just endless pointless dev-hell churning.