Bethesda Game Studios head Todd Howard commented on the mixed reaction of players to the studio's latest projects — Starfield and Fallout 76. In a new interview, he noted that a similar situation had already occurred with the early games in The Elder Scrolls and Fallout series.
According to Howard, at the beginning of their journey, these franchises also caused controversy among the audience, but over time they found dedicated fans. He emphasized that both Starfield and Fallout 76 became experiments for the studio: the first as a debut in science fiction, and the second as Bethesda's first multiplayer project.
The developer noted that after more than 20 years of working on games in the usual format, the team wanted to try new ideas and directions. Despite deviating from the classic formula of single-player role-playing games, both projects were ultimately able to attract a "huge audience," which allowed the studio to continue their development.
Recently, Starfield received the Free Lanes update and the Terran Armada add-on, thanks to which the peak online in Steam grew more than threefold compared to the previous week. However, the release on PlayStation 5 was not as successful as expected: users report problems with crashes and freezes, which could affect sales.
In turn, Fallout 76 has significantly strengthened its position in recent years thanks to constant post-release support and growing interest against the backdrop of the series from Amazon Prime Video. The latest update called The Backwoods added a new boss to the game — Bigfoot — and reworked the event system.