Even Skyrim—certainly a weird, ambitious, and janky RPG in its own right—refined and streamlined the formula set by Morrowind and Oblivion, rather than expanding on their eccentricities, and that trend only continued in the studio’s following games.
Morrowind: An oral history on Polygon is a wonderful read.
All the little stories Kirkbride tells are great. My favourite is him designing progressively weird shit to dupe Howard with. He’d be like “Hey Todd, can we put this in the game?” and after he knowingly got knocked back he’d present him something more palatable.
Yeah, I’ve heard of writers on shows like the Animaniacs doing it, insisting heavily on a more outrageous joke having to go in knowing it’ll get knocked back as a Trojan horse to slip the real jokes they want in.
It’s funny and sad knowing that Bethesda once were the company making weird and ambitious RPGs.
Morrowind is one of the weirdest and most ambitious games of that era.
Indeed, as the article writes
Skyrim wasn’t “weird” by any definition I’d use. More like bland.
Morrowind was thier hail mary to stay in buisness.
Then they gave the series to Howard and his crew…
It’s like the super bowl champs giving the next decade to the Bears.
nowhere is safe 😫
Lol if it makes you feel better I was going to say Buffalo originally
Morrowind: An oral history on Polygon is a wonderful read.
All the little stories Kirkbride tells are great. My favourite is him designing progressively weird shit to dupe Howard with. He’d be like “Hey Todd, can we put this in the game?” and after he knowingly got knocked back he’d present him something more palatable.
That’s a classic negotiation technique abusing the psychological anchoring effect.
Yeah, I’ve heard of writers on shows like the Animaniacs doing it, insisting heavily on a more outrageous joke having to go in knowing it’ll get knocked back as a Trojan horse to slip the real jokes they want in.