I think the fundamental problem is that people had different expectations for a game set in space, both because Bethesda stoked them (all of that talk of having the idea decades ago / first new franchise in however many years / Microsoft bought the company just to get it as an exclusive / etc) and because after No Man's Sky people kind of expected that with their budget / resources they would manage to fix that game's problems and create something richer + more seamless.

In retrospect, if they'd simply sold it as "Skyrim in Space," admitted to the limitations up front - same underlying engine, limited amount of variety to procedurally-generated content, loading screens instead of seamless takeoff/landing, etc - and not pretended that it was something new, the response would have probably been much more uniformly positive.

[+] hoodatninja@kbin.social 6 points 1 year ago (4 children)

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[–] dingus@lemmy.ml 38 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

Everyone recalls, but they also recall Hello Games spending the next several years fixing the game and fleshing out to be closer to their original vision, which is what they were selling to people: their vision. They should have been selling the game, not the vision, but they took their fuckup on the chin and risked a lot. There was no gaurantee they would appease gamers and they essentially had no income except for continued sales of No Mans Sky.

Also NMS was Hello Games' first real big game ever, so you can give them a little slack for having no idea what they're doing.

Bethesda is a 30+ year old juggernaut who waits for modders to fix their games and has been re-releasing their last successful game for a full decade now.

Hello Games made NMS better because they felt bad. Bethesda made Skyrim better to re-release it and get more money.

Also, Hello Games is just 26 people and Bethesda is 420 people and owned by Microsoft.

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