Yesterday in an interview at DICE, Bethesda director Todd Howard revealed that they are working on three long term projects which he described as different to anything they had done before, but still being a Bethesda style game.

http://www.gamespot.com/articles/fallout-4-dev-has-three-big-and-crazy-projects-in-/1100-6434911/

Anyone got any guesses what that might be? You would expect another Elder Scrolls game to be happening, but the wording made it sound like these were completely new areas.

One could potentially be a VR thing. Maybe one is a mobile game. I hope one is a new engine.

I also wonder if they are thinking about transplanting their style of open world game into a new setting, and what that would be. Wild West? Ancient Rome? Feudal Japan? Japanese high school? Where do fetch quests not fit in?

I guess the question is, what can you see Bethesda doing aside more Elder Scrolls and Fallout?

Space. The final Bethesda open world frontier.

Wild guess. But seriously though, that would be a pretty good fit. And seeing that the space simulator/exploration -genre is getting more popular, it wouldn't be too unthinkable.

I think regardless of wording, one of those games is going to be The Elder Scrolls VI. I'm not sure what the other two could be though, since I think Bethesda Softworks has always been a one game studio. Hopefully these mystery projects will be something other than "broken open-world games with mediocre writing and brain-dead RPG systems". That would be a nice change of pace.

They seem to be barely able to release a working product when they're only working on one at a time. I can only imagine how magically busted their games are going to be when they split that 100 person team onto three separate projects. Either way best of luck, at this point I'm no longer expecting anything great from Bethesda, I'm just hoping they prove me wrong.

"still being a Bethesda style game"

To me that reads as "we're making new games, but we'll continue using that janky engine we've been using".

Seriously, I think they should be looking at the structures that stitch their games together, and then work on the games. Do some backstage restructuring.

Yesterday in an interview at DICE, Bethesda director Todd Howard revealed that they are working on three long term projects which he described as different to anything they had done before, but still being a Bethesda style game.

You mean they're gonna make a good game!?

I mean I'm joking there, but that team is already pretty small, so splitting them up to work on 3 projects can only mean that the projects themselves are a lot smaller in scope than their usual affair. Which could also mean a more refined, focused final product, which I would be a lot more interested in at this point.

With regards to them dividing up their team, I think he did mention elsewhere in the interview about them being able to take on some more people.

Which is good news but then is still mitigated if they are dividing people up.

That's cool. Three different opportunities for them to lie and tell us about their totally "new" engine being used for each project!

I can't wait for folks start talking about how this time it will be different and how this time they'll be better.

Whatever. I'm glad for those who enjoy their games I guess.

Well, with that Fallout nonsense more-or-less out of the way, I for one am looking forward to exploring the Summerset Isles several years down the track in whatever cutting-edge engine succeeds that Creation Engine garbage.

More interested in what Shinji's development team is up to, if anything.

Another TES is inevitable given Skyrim sold about a zillion copies, but they certainly need to start freshening things up a bit in general. Fallout 4 felt like they were treading water and, while it sold well enough, the response has been fairly lukewarm.

Their next game feels very important now. Another mediocre release and they're in danger of following Bioware out of that top tier of developers.

@jimbo: I don't know, I think it's honestly a very vocal minority that has a dissenting opinion about that game. It won just about every award there was to win at the DICE awards (which were kind of a joke but hey..) and it received pretty glowing reviews from major publications. All I ever hear is how many hours people have put into it and how they can't wait for DLC or some mod so they can play it all over again. The people who are visibly irked by the lack of quality and innovation appear to be a small group compared to the masses that seem to love the formula to death.

Some sort of cyberpunk future game please, the closer to Ghost in The Shell the better.

I think it is crazy to still consider them that! But there is an argument to be made that they are still barely there, lets see what they can pull out.
I fully expect that whatever they do next might end up getting schooled by cyberpunk 2077.

As long as one of them is another TES game.

You're probably right. To my mind CDPR are operating on a different level to their most direct competitors right now, but there's always a lag between that being the case and it being widely accepted. Being from Eastern Europe doesn't help in this regard, with a US-dominated press often seeming quite reluctant to give them their due.

If they can continue this level outside of the Witcher franchise, I think people will have to start recognising them.

I wish they would pull their resources and work on ONE title, and make it great rather than 3 projects that will probably be a mobile game , a new TES game built on the same engine as F4, and a Fallout MMO on the same engine as TES mmo.

They've combined Doom into a Fallout world.

PREY 2

I'd love to see their take on a pure survival game (a la Don't Starve).

I would like to see something completely out of their usual zone, a racing game, or what Fallout 4 was basically one big beta for, a dating sim!

Or, yeah, just what @ripelivejam said, PREY 2, or even just going "Hey, this isn't Prey 2, but it's super heavily inspired by what Prey 2 was going to be."

as long as those press sneak fucks don't get involved.

Hopefully with the same engine as Fallout 4 still, because I laughed my ass off with that game..