Skyrim lead thinks Starfield "would be talked about like the second coming" if a new studio made it, but "expectations were so much higher" with Bethesda

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Skyrim lead thinks Starfield "would be talked about like the second coming" if a new studio made it, but "expectations were so much higher" with Bethesda News By Kaan Serin published 1 February 2026

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Skyrim's lead designer Bruce Nesmith suspects that if Starfield were made by a company not called Bethesda Game Studios, it might be talked about like "the second coming."

The former Bethesda veteran talked about how the storied RPG studio suffers from the weight of so much expectation, in a chat with Press Box PR, suggesting that the lukewarm reception to Starfield might have be partially down to how sky high (star high?) the hype was before launch.

"Bethesda's in the bad position of having expectations being so high they cannot be met," Nesmith says. "Managing expectations is the number one thing a good marketing department has to do... Let's assume that a new studio had put out Starfield. I suspect it would be talked about like the second coming. But because it was released by Bethesda, the expectations were so much higher that it was seen differently. Starfield is a good game. It's a very good game. It's just not the game that people expected it to be."

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Nesmith departed the company halfway through the space epic's development, so he looks at it with the same eyes as most players: "I played that game all the way to the bitter end and I have thoughts and I have concerns but I played it to the bitter end and therefore that's a win for Bethesda." Despite having a few quibbles with the game, Nesmith said Starfield "felt very natural" for the studio and he's "betting" that a sequel would "knock that out of the park" since the team could simply improve on its first attempt.

Mass Effect 5 would benefit from "taking lessons from Baldur's Gate 3" and being more of a "Bethesda-style game," Skyrim lead says

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Contact me with news and offers from other Future brandsReceive email from us on behalf of our trusted partners or sponsorsBy submitting your information you agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy and are aged 16 or over. CATEGORIES Xbox Series X PC Gaming Platforms Xbox Kaan SerinFreelance contributor

Kaan freelances for various websites including Rock Paper Shotgun, Eurogamer, and this one, Gamesradar. He particularly enjoys writing about spooky indies, throwback RPGs, and anything that's vaguely silly. Also has an English Literature and Film Studies degree that he'll soon forget.

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