Todd Howard says Bethesda's trying to 'increase our output' with Elder Scrolls and Fallout 'because we don't want to wait that long either'
Todd Howard says Bethesda's trying to 'increase our output' with Elder Scrolls and Fallout 'because we don't want to wait that long either'

Todd Howard says Bethesda's trying to 'increase our output' with Elder Scrolls and Fallout 'because we don't want to wait that long either'

After Starfield, I don't know if 'increase our output' is a good thing.
Depends.
If it means doing more deals like when Obsidian was allowed to make New Vegas, might finally mean that Bethesda franchises get some decent entries again.
I think you've hit the nail on the head. They clearly skimped on the content for all those planets and handwaved it away as perfectly normal and expected, when it clearly wasn't good. Why? To add breadth without adding time to the development. To "increase their output" without adding more input.
It clearly didn't work there, but it could have worked with some decent mechanics and a little more thought into the content. It worked for No Man's Sky.
Luckily for Bethesda, AI has suddenly gotten a lot better, and they'll be able to use it to generate a ton of content that feels better than standard old procedurally generated content. That is, of course, if they can manage to work it into their tooling for their ancient engine.
"Yes, but space is boring and therefore it's realistic" is still one of my favorite excuses for a game.
It's really hard to fill a space game with content. It's not that surprising that a lot of the world's are empty. This is an issue for all space games, not just Bethesda.
More Skyrim remakes!
They are making people crunch and we get an unfinished buggy game on release.
That's just business as usual
People will fix it for free over time.
Six months later and still no Creation Kit is saying something else.