100%. The graphics may be dated but gen 2 is peak Pokemon aesthetic. Peak sprites and soundtrack.

The upside I guess is that a lot of cis straight men got to experience how uncomfortable unwanted advances are.

Yep. It did depend on the companion a bit, IIRC Shadowheart and Astarion’s romances wouldn’t be triggered unless the PC picked the flirty dialogue. But then there were some companions who would pursue the player. I hated how I couldn’t just be Gale’s Bro, and Halsin is just plain creepy.

Exactly this. I liked witcher 3 but I can never bring myself to replay it because of the time commitment. I replayed Witcher 2 a dozen times and its a tight 30 hours.

I still enjoyed the first game but wasn’t one of the lead devs on KCD a capital G Gamer? I remember some… interesting tweets from him. Was he booted or did he change his ways?

Edit: Derp, should have just read the article before commenting. Fascism eats its own yet again.

And Cyberpunk

One RPG that does a really great job of circumventing this is Morrowind. Early in the story there are several natural breaks where the PC is encouraged to do side quests and immurse themselves in the world. Once the main quest gets going it starts to take precedence, but the world ending threat builds slowly at first.

Bethesda is, in many ways, a victim of its own success. Morrowind and Oblivion were both solid entries that did well critically and financially, but no one was prepared for the massive impact of Skyrim. Its success transformed open-world fantasy games into a staple of AAA gaming, and the game has stayed relevant for over a decade.

However, even when it was first released, Skyrim fell short in several areas that were often overlooked due to the sheer “wow” factor of its open world. The game is plagued by bugs, many of which are game-breaking and persist even in recent re-releases. The AI is brain-dead, melee combat is clunky, and the quest design and writing often lack depth.

In the years since, the landscape of gaming has evolved. Numerous fantasy and open-world games have improved upon things that Skyrim did well, and raised the bar for what players expect from many areas where Skyrim fell short. Players today have a wealth of games to choose from and are less forgiving of these types of flaws. Starfield’s lukewarm reception reflects Bethesda’s seeming unwillingness—or inability—to update its design philosophy for a modern audience.

The expectations for The Elder Scrolls VI have become impossible to meet. These expectations are sky-high not only among fans but also from Bethesda’s new parent company, Microsoft. TES6 will almost certainly be a financial success, but Microsoft didn’t acquire Bethesda for just “decent” results like Starfield; they acquired the creators of Skyrim to make blockbuster hits that dominate the charts and win critical acclaim.

In the end, Bethesda knows they will never recapture the lightning-in-a-bottle success of Skyrim. So they’ll keep sitting on the IP, until Microsoft forces them to release something mediocre, and their studio joins many of the other classic RPG developers in obscurity.