Bethesda Developers Enjoy the Creative Shift Between The Elder Scrolls and Fallout, Finding Inspiration in the Contrast of Fantasy and Sci-Fi

As Bethesda navigates the pressures of developing both The Elder Scrolls 6 and the next chapter in Fallout, the studio thrives in a creatively rich environment, allowing developers to explore two unique storytelling styles.

Switching between these franchises presents its challenges, but it also offers essential breaks, as shared by two developers in a recent discussion.

“It keeps things fresh. It keeps you from getting bored,” says Istvan Pely, an artist at Bethesda. “You have the opportunity to step away from a franchise for a few years, and that’s enough time to build up a desire: ‘All right, I want to dive back in.'”

This kind of rotation is invaluable when you’re deeply involved in a major release, as Bethesda developers often are. Titles like Oblivion, Skyrim, and Fallout 3 and 4 were monumental projects, and the upcoming entries in these series are set to be even larger. Not to mention Starfield, the studio’s latest original IP. Regardless of whether your passion lies in science fiction or fantasy, such extensive work can become exhausting.

“You work on the same thing for long enough, and while it may not be boring, it can feel monotonous,” adds Angela Browder, studio and production director at Bethesda. “The shift from Fallout to Elder Scrolls, then back to Fallout, and onto Starfield—these transitions really get your creativity flowing.”

Having this kind of flexibility is a rarity in the gaming industry, especially at Bethesda’s scale. With anticipation at an all-time high, the teams have ample room to experiment and brainstorm, knowing that the next Elder Scrolls and Fallout titles will have massive audiences waiting.

While it would be great to have more insight into either project, that’s a conversation for another time. Todd Howard has been hinting at something related to the wasteland for a while now, and it seems no amount of bottle caps will pry more information from the studio until they’re ready to share. We’ll keep you updated.

Fallout 3 “went hard on the gloomy despair of the post-apocalyptic world” to set itself apart from Oblivion, but one developer feels Bethesda may have overdone it: “We just drained the color out of the world.”