I’d rather have a long development cycle but deeper, more substantive games.
This isn’t anything new - the “Megagames” were famous for having crazily long development times for the era. And some of those went on to be very well received like Ultima VII, Ultima Underworld, Daggerfall, Baldur’s Gate, etc. - I remember Baldur’s Gate advertising the “90 man-years” required to create it and same for Daggerfall for the (procedurally-filled) map “the size of Great Britain”.
There are plenty of companies with short turn-around times, but they make mediocre games.
Not that elder scrolls 6 has been in development for 12 years. The long wait is for other reasons like prioritizing other games, not actual development time.
I honestly bet ESVI just started actual, large scale development recently. Like within the last year as Starfield is wrapping up. We aren’t seeing that game until like 2026-2027 imo.
We might have actually gone from the last Space Shuttle flight (July 8, 2011) to the first moon landing since Apollo (2025-2026) before ESVI is released. Crazy.
we all know this is nonsense, right? like, the development cycles have gotten so long because theyve just decided that its better that way
I’d rather have a long development cycle but deeper, more substantive games.
This isn’t anything new - the “Megagames” were famous for having crazily long development times for the era. And some of those went on to be very well received like Ultima VII, Ultima Underworld, Daggerfall, Baldur’s Gate, etc. - I remember Baldur’s Gate advertising the “90 man-years” required to create it and same for Daggerfall for the (procedurally-filled) map “the size of Great Britain”.
There are plenty of companies with short turn-around times, but they make mediocre games.
im not advocating for things like fifa, cod or NBA, but a~15 year wait between games of the same franchise like elder scrolls is pretty ridiculous
Not that elder scrolls 6 has been in development for 12 years. The long wait is for other reasons like prioritizing other games, not actual development time.
I honestly bet ESVI just started actual, large scale development recently. Like within the last year as Starfield is wrapping up. We aren’t seeing that game until like 2026-2027 imo.
We might have actually gone from the last Space Shuttle flight (July 8, 2011) to the first moon landing since Apollo (2025-2026) before ESVI is released. Crazy.
2-3 years? In the 80s devs could crank out games in weeks!