How did Bioware and Bethesda, RPG masters a decade ago, fall so low?

[Deleted member 13645]

I think Bethesda is fine. Fallout 76 at the moment is an outlier, I don't know that it will necessarily have an impact on their games going forward. I'm still excited to see and play Starfield and the next Elder Scrolls.

For Bioware, isn't Anthem the first game by their 'A Team' since ME3? I thought ME3 was a good game even though the ending was bad. Andromeda was by the B-team, and Anthem just seems like something that doesn't match their strengths at all. I'm not quite ready to declare Bioware as being bad.

All hail CDPR

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I'm also excited to see what Playground and Obsidian can do since presumably both of them will have a large budget for RPGs going forward. Larian as well.

 

[Andrew Lucas]

You gotta love when people feel the need to be "that one dude" and claim ME2 wasn't really great despite the critical acclaim.

 

[Deleted member 4413]

Not... really. Gamespot had a poll on their website and YouTube asking viewers which modern Fallout game was the best. New Vegas won in a landslide and a ton of the comments were about how dissapointing of a sequel Fallout 4 was. I actually think Fallout 4 is becoming way less praised overall as the years go by. The game has a laundry list of massive, undeniable flaws and you'll find people discussing those flaws on any online community outside of era.

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How did Fallout 4 place in the poll? It's interesting if public opinion is changing over time, I wonder what would cause that, it's not like the game has gotten worse or anything. New Vegas deserves to win by a landslide though. Personally I think it's the best Fallout game period, even taking into account the originals and I haven't even finished New Vegas.

 

[ArbitraryWater]

I think part of it is just that Bioware and Bethesda were kind of the only Western RPG game in town for a while. Now that they aren't, and you have stuff like The Witcher 3 on the AAA end and the recent spate of really good CRPG revivals on the other end. Hell, every other modern AAA game has RPG elements, and big open worlds these days. Assassin's Creed, of all franchises, has dialogue trees now for some reason. To put it bluntly: Everyone else got better, and Bioware and Bethesda aren't special anymore. They're even chasing "Games as a Service" like everyone else.

That said, I think the circumstances are a little different. Bioware has been slowly crushed by EA corporate mandates for a while, and a lot of the people responsible for their success a decade ago don't work at the company anymore. On the other hand, I think BGS has never had consistently good writing or mechanics in their games, and they've just coasted by because no one else makes games in that exact simulationist "I'm going to pick up 30 cheese wheels and roll them down this hill" sort of way. Oblivion blew my damn mind when I was in middle school, and they've kind of just made slightly more refined versions of Oblivion since. Even with that said, Fallout 76 just feels like a miscalculated disaster, something that should've been canned or given another year of development.

 

[Trice]

People that made those games good, left. Oh, and greed.

 

[Subxero]

They went multi player or Games as Service to chase that micro transaction money.

They should have just focused on what they were good at or made damn sure the engine they were using could handle MP and the systems that involes way before releasing something.

Honestly I think the engines they used are not suited for these type of games and the push to be greedy with MTX schemes making them charge for what was always free.

 

[Deleted member 364]

Western AAA's insistence on making every thing GaaS/open world instead of making focused, quality single player games.

 

[Hate]

Not playing to their strengths and chasing a different market/audience.

 

[ZSeibar]

Because the AAA industry is fucked.

At this point we're lucky if DA4 isn't cancelled.

 

[Arta]

Why is this forum so obsessed with this

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[Raide]

Personally, I loved the NWN days for Bioware and the first ME game. KOTOR also amazing. Crafting cool and unique worlds.
Progressively they started just pandering to players to make sequels and adding romance options to everything, instead of attempting fresh new things and not just relying on safe sequels to pad out their library.

 

[clickKunst]

EA squeezed so much blood out of Bioware. You could see this was an issue as early as Mass Effect 3 where the game ends with a message to buy DLC. Their fingerprints were all over that game.

 

[Wagram]

The teams aren't the same as they were back then. Everyone falls. Look at Square in the 90s compared to where they are now or hell even Capcom (luckily Capcom has recovered). These companies chase trends and buzzwords without understanding their audiences. Square wanted FF to become CoD for christ sakes.

 

[Torpedo Vegas]

I'm not too concerned about either right now. Fallout 76 seemed like a one off experiment as Starfield and the next Elder Scrolls will be back to their normal style of games.

Bioware I loved Inquisition, Andromeda was ok just not as good as the others, and Anthem I'm having a god damn blast with.

 

[Dysun]

The mandate came down from the top that everything had to have multiplayer and evergreen microtransaction money. Therefore, these devs had to find a way to make that work and they abandoned their audiences and proved that not every studio is capable of making that kind of game.

 

[Garlador]

EA squeezed so much blood out of Bioware. You could see this was an issue as early as Mass Effect 3 where the game ends with a message to buy DLC. Their fingerprints were all over that game.

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I think the most blatant sign was actually pre-launch...
You know, locking ME3's most interesting, lore-spewing DLC companion behind on-disc, Day 1 DLC.

The ending fiasco soon took over the narrative, but fans were very upset you couldn't get one of the best new squadmates without shelling out the collector's edition of the game. It was ridiculous then and ridiculous now, but the outrage was drowned out by "red/blue/green" ending disappointments VERY soon after launch. Javik's DLC ransom became a storm in a teacup as a result.

 

[Braag]

They are no longer in the business to make great games. They are in the business to make as much money as possible and maximize profits.

 

[Maledict]

And bioware was killed by too much political correctness a.

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I would *absolutely love* for you to explain what you mean by this.

Please, go ahead.

 

[TheKidObi]

Their fans eat up everything they put out and they thought they can get away with puting trash games till their fans started to realize their past product don't excuse them for their current shitty product

 

[clickKunst]

I think the most blatant sign was actually pre-launch...
You know, locking ME3's most interesting, lore-spewing DLC companion behind on-disc, Day 1 DLC.

The ending fiasco soon took over the narrative, but fans were very upset you couldn't get one of the best new squadmates without shelling out the collector's edition of the game. It was ridiculous then and ridiculous now, but the outrage was drowned out by "red/blue/green" ending disappointments VERY soon after launch. Javik's DLC ransom became a storm in a teacup as a result.

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Absolutely, there was much to criticise about Mass Effect 3. How it stripped away so many mechanics from ME2, how it lost its cinematic flair by reducing cut scenes, how it handled side-quests and... the illusion of choice that plagued all narrative games only up until this generation. To petition for an ending change and then think new ending DLC patched up these issues really glosses over how these developers were mishandled by EA - rushed, micro-managed and exploited.

 

[headspawn]

Probably because they excel at traditional RPG's and the two games you are mentioning that have low scores are not traditional RPG's.

 

[Foffy]

As others have said in this thread, it's because both of these projects are not only out of the team's norm, but they're chasing trends that never defined either company.

Look at how Anthem is in particular, close your eyes, and think how that is like Mass Effect or Knights of the Old Republic beyond the fame of the company making it. None of the DNA of those games, and what makes them great, was carried into Anthem.

Fallout 76 is a different story. I'd argue it exposes the innate problems of any Bethesda game because modders usually complete the ambitions of these games better than the actual "official" product does; no mods means the public completely sees how the game is poorly stitched together, and with no NPCs it no longer hides the window dressing of fundamentally broken games. Additionally, their shady ass marketing and trying to make an always-online game were just deceptive tactics to not only chase trends, but seemed to be an attempt to double down on the whole paying for mods thing with the Atom store. It's a glimpse into a potential future of hyper capitalist "we must make all of the money, not some of the money" by even atomizing additional weapons, skins, and the like with nickel and diming.

I do think their scale and failures are drastically different, however. Anthem is just a lukewarm, meandering game without a soul, and that's a byproduct of chasing trends. It will already be an irrelevant game before we're into the 2020s. Fallout 76, however, may be the worst "high profile" game released since Sonic 06, going down in infamy as a trash game.

 

[burnsy]

The goal for developers to milk Microtransactions out of players is the biggest culprit. I'm not really a fan of multiplayer and certainly not a loot shooter fan. So my view is these 2 factors contributed as well they are how micro transaction model is generated.

Anthem could have been a brilliant solo RPG. Fallout should most definitely been another solo experience.

 

[burnsy]

They are no longer in the business to make great games. They are in the business to make as much money as possible and maximize profits.

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EA. Poisoning the industry

 

[Kumomeme]

audience 'growing up'..

 

[spman2099]

How did Fallout 4 place in the poll? It's interesting if public opinion is changing over time, I wonder what would cause that, it's not like the game has gotten worse or anything. New Vegas deserves to win by a landslide though. Personally I think it's the best Fallout game period, even taking into account the originals and I haven't even finished New Vegas.

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There was a lot of criticism of Fallout 4 on day one, just not much of it coming from game journalists. The metacritic user scores are hugely at odds with the reception it received from the critics. I don't know why Fallout 4 got a pass from the gaming press, but it certainly deserved a worse reception than it got. I think if it had received the score it deserved (low 70's), Fallout 76 wouldn't have happened. Of course Bethesda thought they were invincible, why wouldn't they? No one was willing to take them to task for their broken, dumbed down, ugly game that didn't even play particularly well.

 

[Cats_Schrodinger]

I don't understand why Bethesda needs to be mentioned on the same page as BioWare. All of their games until 76 followed the RPG formula, and even though people say FO4 was shit, it was very much an RPG and it was in no way crap, it both sold and reviewed well. It may not be the best Fallout but it certainly wasn't a bad game.

FO76 was an experiment, and everything that we know about is going to stuck to the traditional RPG formula, yet, some people still think this is the end for Bethesda and they will continue with these online games exclusively. Come on...

BioWare has been underperforming ever since ME2, which was their last game that was not flawed in some big way. ME3 was their last game that sold well and reviewed well (how, I don't know). They are certainly in a much, much worse position than Bethesda.

 

[Deleted member 224]

I don't understand why Bethesda needs to be mentioned on the same page as BioWare. All of their games until 76 followed the RPG formula, and even though people say FO4 was shit, it was very much an RPG and it was in no way crap, it both sold and reviewed well. It may not be the best Fallout but it certainly wasn't a bad game.

FO76 was an experiment, and everything that we know about is going to stuck to the traditional RPG formula, yet, some people still think this is the end for Bethesda and they will continue with these online games exclusively. Come on...

BioWare has been underperforming ever since ME2, which was their last game that was not flawed in some big way. ME3 was their last game that sold well and reviewed well (how, I don't know). They are certainly in a much, much worse position than Bethesda.

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Dragon Age Inquisition won goty the year it was released, yet the general consensus seems to be that it wasn't particularly good. The exact same can be said for Fallout 4. A ton of huge flaws in a generally janky and dated feeling game. Both studios have been struggling for the entire generation.

 

[SuperBoss]

It's what can happen if you chase trends over focusing on a personal creative vision.

 

[Valdega]

Fallout 76 is a different story. I'd argue it exposes the innate problems of any Bethesda game because modders usually complete the ambitions of these games better than the actual "official" product does; no mods means the public completely sees how the game is poorly stitched together, and with no NPCs it no longer hides the window dressing of fundamentally broken games. Additionally, their shady ass marketing and trying to make an always-online game were just deceptive tactics to not only chase trends, but seemed to be an attempt to double down on the whole paying for mods thing with the Atom store. It's a glimpse into a potential future of hyper capitalist "we must make all of the money, not some of the money" by even atomizing additional weapons, skins, and the like with nickel and diming.

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I agree and disagree with your points. Fallout 76 is basically Fallout 4 without NPCs. It still has the same gameplay mechanics and core loop. You explore ruins, kill enemies and scavenge for loot and resources. There are still plenty of dungeons with interesting backstories and lore. However, without NPCs or the ability to have a meaningful impact on the world, FO76 can't be a story-driven game. It doesn't feel like you're actually changing anything... you're simply uncovering the past. For many people, Bethesda's games need to have a player-centric story to drive them forward. FO76 doesn't have that benefit.

That said, the outrage over the Atom store is a bit much. Everything sold there is 100% cosmetic and you can earn the store currency by completing repeatable challenges in-game. These are challenges that you'll complete by simply playing the game naturally (craft 10 items, scrap 10 items, level up, kill 10 robots, etc). FO76 is in no way P2W because you can't buy anything that would actually give you a gameplay advantage.

The biggest issue with FO76 is that it doesn't commit to being a multiplayer game. There's no persistence. When you log off, anything you've built disappears as well. Players aren't actually in the same world, either. You're playing by yourself until the server detects that another player is in the same area, at which point they join your game. As soon as they (or you) leave the area, they disconnect. This process is pretty annoying too because all the enemies respawn and scale up to the highest-leveled player. So you can spend 20 minutes clearing an area, then someone joins your game and everything respawns at a significantly higher level. It makes me not want to encounter other players which is the opposite of what a multiplayer game should do.

 

[Cats_Schrodinger]

Dragon Age Inquisition won goty the year it was released, yet the general consensus seems to be that it wasn't particularly good. The exact same can be said for Fallout 4. A ton of huge flaws in a generally janky and dated feeling game. Both studios have been struggling for the entire generation.

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I think DA:I and Fallout 4 are very similar. They are fun, interesting games with many smaller flaws and most importantly, just lack creativity in general (writing in FO4 most of the time is not too good).

The difference is, this was a high point for BioWare. For Bethesda, this was low.

 

[Vincent Alexander]

Why is this forum so obsessed with this

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Seriously. This has been discussed to death in about 8479203 other Anthem threads. The horse is dead already. Leave the poor thing alone.

 

[Odeko]

I don't understand why Bethesda needs to be mentioned on the same page as BioWare. All of their games until 76 followed the RPG formula, and even though people say FO4 was shit, it was very much an RPG and it was in no way crap, it both sold and reviewed well. It may not be the best Fallout but it certainly wasn't a bad game.

FO76 was an experiment, and everything that we know about is going to stuck to the traditional RPG formula, yet, some people still think this is the end for Bethesda and they will continue with these online games exclusively. Come on...

BioWare has been underperforming ever since ME2, which was their last game that was not flawed in some big way. ME3 was their last game that sold well and reviewed well (how, I don't know). They are certainly in a much, much worse position than Bethesda.

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Obviously RPG vs. not an RPG is a blurry line, and it comes down to how many of a wide variety of potential elements a game has. There's no magic formula for rounding up all the RPG traits and if it has a certain amount, it gets to be an RPG.

That being said, I'd argue FO4 is the point where they'd stripped enough away to where it no longer qualifies as an RPG. I'd call it an open-world shooter really, with some minor RPG elements.

 

[Deleted member 224]

I think DA:I and Fallout 4 are very similar. They are fun, interesting games with many smaller flaws and most importantly, just lack creativity in general (writing in FO4 most of the time is not too good).

The difference is, this was a high point for BioWare. For Bethesda, this was low.

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F4 has quite a few flaws that aren't "small". It relies heavily on base/settlement building. Yet everything that has to do with settlements is absolutely horrible without mods. The game relies heavily on combat to the detriment of genuinely interesting stories and quests. There's way too many dungeon clear "radiant quests" in the game. The world itself looks ok, but is designed poorly being rather small and having a ton of useless space (water) or unused space (swamp) with a lack of unique biomes. I could go on too. The perk system is a downgrade from New Vegas, the writing is poor, the settlements are dissapointing, there's a laundry list of visual and gameplay bugs that still haven't been fixed.

 

[Mihai_]

Bethesda makes the best immersive sims in the market (and they include RPG elements).
They had a bad game (F76) and suddenly they've fallen so low?
Sounds like OP likes exaggerations.

 

[KcebAnier]

Bioware sold their souls for that EA payout. They are destined to go down with the ship. Cant make quality games when your first assignment is to monetize as much as possible and your second assignment is to release when told, not when finished.

Bethesda is just a victim of the public loving to watch a champion fail. There is a vocal minority that loves to harp on the Fallout and Elder Scrolls bugs, but the vast Majority of people do not care and still love their games. 76 was just the trip up the internet was waiting for so they could pounce with the Bethesda is garbage nonsense.

The next Elder Scrolls will launch to critical acclaim and suddenly Skyrim will be the worst game ever made. Fallout 5 will launch and people will pine for the good old days of Fallout 4 and call it the best Fallout ever made. It's like clockwork for Bethesda. Their games are magically terrible now, but they could release Fallout 4 on Switch next year and sell a few million copies because the reality is that Bethesda makes great games that people love.

 

[Deleted member 224]

Bioware sold their souls for that EA payout. They are destined to go down with the ship. Cant make quality games when your first assignment is to monetize as much as possible and your second assignment is to release when told, not when finished.

Bethesda is just a victim of the public loving to watch a champion fail. There is a vocal minority that loves to harp on the Fallout and Elder Scrolls bugs, but the vast Majority of people do not care and still love their games. 76 was just the trip up the internet was waiting for so they could pounce with the Bethesda is garbage nonsense.

The next Elder Scrolls will launch to critical acclaim and suddenly Skyrim will be the worst game ever made. Fallout 5 will launch and people will pine for the good old days of Fallout 4 and call it the best Fallout ever made. It's like clockwork for Bethesda. Their games are magically terrible now, but they could release Fallout 4 on Switch next year and sell a few million copies because the reality is that Bethesda makes great games that people love.

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I don't know how people can act like 76 was a "slight trip" and then turn around and call all of BioWares output this gen trash. It's like you guys forget Inquisition was considered the game of the year back in 2014 and has a higher metacritic score than Fallout 4.

BioWares output this generation handily beats BGSs output if we look at critical reception.

 

[Vector]

Bioware and Bethesda are at their best when they make narrative-driven single player games with lots of worldbuilding and I'm a big fan of games like TES and Dragon Age for that reason alone. With that said, I don't think it's wrong for them to explore new territory and I'm fine with them "chasing trends" if it's done well.

In Anthem's case, the game suffers most from technical issues IMO. The amount of bugs and performance issues and loading times all pile up and drag down the experience. On a theoretical level, the game should work, but doesn't because of all the technical issues. I'm 100% sure that if the game ran perfectly and the game world felt more cohesive with less loading times, the game would have been much better received and would be sitting in the 70s range on MC. The combat and the exploration parts are fun, but they only work individually outside the context of the full game because the full game is such a slog and a technical mess.

I find that baffling because Bioware supposedly has a ton of experience making polished AAA games, but this one just didn't feel like it.

 

[Advc]

All the best talent went away and joined other studios.

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This. Which is why I'm not kinda hopeful with Metroid Prime 4 returning to Retro Studios because pretty much all the developers who worked on MP 1, 2 and 3 are gone.

 

[KcebAnier]

I don't know how people can act like 76 was a "slight trip" and then turn around and call all of BioWares output this gen trash. It's like you guys forget Inquisition was considered the game of the year back in 2014 and has a higher metacritic score than Fallout 4.

BioWares output this generation handily beats BGSs output if we look at critical reception.

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I never said 76 was a slight trip, it's an abject failure. But its Bethesda's only failure. I said people were looking for a way to justify their unrealistic belief that Bethesda was a garbage studio and 76 gave them that.

Bioware has put out three games this generation and two of them were failures, technically, critically and in sales. To say they are beating anyone in terms of critical reception or any other metric is just patently false.

 

[Vito]

Greed.

 

[Deleted member 4413]

There was a lot of criticism of Fallout 4 on day one, just not much of it coming from game journalists. The metacritic user scores are hugely at odds with the reception it received from the critics. I don't know why Fallout 4 got a pass from the gaming press, but it certainly deserved a worse reception than it got. I think if it had received the score it deserved (low 70's), Fallout 76 wouldn't have happened. Of course Bethesda thought they were invincible, why wouldn't they? No one was willing to take them to task for their broken, dumbed down, ugly game that didn't even play particularly well.

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Metacritic user scores are rarely reflective of the overall public reception to a game. Many arguably great games get review bombed on there all the time. Though I'm not arguing against the points made that public perception of F4 has changed over time.

 

[Aters]

Even before Anthem and Fallout 76, Mass Effect Andromeda and Fallout 4 already pissed people off. So I'm not sure multiplayer is the only one to blame here.

 

[Deleted member 224]

I never said 76 was a slight trip, it's an abject failure. But its Bethesda's only failure. I said people were looking for a way to justify their unrealistic belief that Bethesda was a garbage studio and 76 gave them that.

Bioware has put out three games this generation and two of them were failures, technically, critically and in sales. To say they are beating anyone in terms of critical reception or any other metric is just patently false.

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Not really. BGS has released 3 games this generation as well with F4, Fallout Shelter, and 76. Head to head based on release order, BioWare wins. We'll see what the reception to Blades is. I wonder why we haven't heard anything from that game recently. I mean I have a guess but...

 

[MrH]

That piece of shit engine didn't do F76 any favours.

 

[Smoolio]

And bioware was killed by too much political correctness a.

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The fuck is this? Things like them being one of the only devs with multiple LGBT characters and plotlines is one of their best strengths, if you think its a bad thing then you can fuck right off.

 

[ByteCulture]

The fuck is this? Things like them being one of the only devs with multiple LGBT characters and plotlines is one of their best strengths, if you think its a bad thing then you can fuck right off.

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Nope. I dont think its a bad thing but the execution wasnt perfect in mass effect 2 or 3? I have friends who put it away just because they didnt like how every guy hit on them as a male player.

I also didnt like the female writer that wanted to force her novolette fanfiction views on everybody and thought it was a good idea. If someone comes up with such ideas i can write better stories and do it myself. I already write sci-fiction fantasy and working on my concept game.

For me: The end of bioware was the mass effect 3 ending and the mmo single player dragon age. Andromeda was one big surprise for me but they already destroyed the mass effect franchise too much with 3.

 

[Thorn]

They don't make RPGs, just shooters with numbers slapped on.

 

[Pottuvoi]

They diluted RPG elements away from their games while reducing choices and freedom within gameplay.

 

[darkwing]

is this the biggest fall for a developer? 96 to 60 metacritic