Skyrim's lead designer warns faster Elder Scrolls, Fallout games risk disappointment

It has been many years since Bethesda released new mainline entries in its two biggest series: Fallout 4 is now 11 years old, while Skyrim arrived nearly 15 years after Daggerfall. Microsoft has signalled a desire to speed up those release cycles, but a former Bethesda designer urges caution.

Bruce Nesmith, Skyrim's lead designer, points to a familiar trade-off in software development: "the process having three corners: resources, time and quality. The studio decides two of them, which determines the third." He warned that locking down resources and schedule dictates the quality the team can achieve.

Nesmith also notes that modern teams and budgets are already very large, and that adding money or people can make projects more unwieldy. He argues the only real way to shorten schedules is to cut resources and cautions that "the biggest risk of shortened schedules is quality, reduced features, polish or bugs," which could leave sequels disappointing fans.

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