You can really tell it was and still is being written by bigoted WASPs. Aside from the obvious monarchism and the Empire being portrayed unilaterally as “The Good Guys” (at least until Skyrim), I’ve noticed for a long time that the backstory is riddled with genocides and ethnic cleansings.
Almost always human on elf (the inhuman other), and almost always treated like a good thing. Usually it’s the noble and physically superior Nords who just so happen to be blonde haired, blue eyed vikings. And when it’s not them, it’s the psychotic child killing robot man Pelinal Whitestrake or Tiber Septim using a time bending superweapon to annihilate thousands of Altmer for the crime of checks notes successfully defending themselves from his Imperialist bullshit. I think it’s insulting that the victims of what can only be described as oppression are now painted as the Nazi-esque villains because the alternative would be making them way too sympathetic. That’s not even getting into how they treat the Orcs and the Beast races.
We talk about how guys like Tolkien and CS Lewis wrote a lot of racist undertones, and then Bethesda says “Fuck that” and just makes the ethnonationalism a plot point in all their games.
Skyrim was a weird one for me because it was my first Elder Scrolls game and I’d have sided with the Nords unequivocally (as they are rejecting the empire and imperialism) and I think Bethesda knew they couldn’t write a nuanced plot or portray imperialism as the good guys so they made the Nords wacky overt racists just to give the games civil war story line a “both sides” feel and its so shallow and obvious. Felt like a Marvel movie.
Also characterising the Altmer as the worser imperial group compared to the literal empire was another tone death attempt to legitimise who the writing staff clearly saw as the good guys (the imperials) which felt again very shit.
Same here. Skyrim, although a game very dear to me, does suffer from bad writing from Bethesda’s part.
It was such an incredible game, I just remember some of the shit writing around the civil war and it was such a blemish on a game I spent hundreds of hours on.
Dominion Altmer were caricaturally evil nazis, so over the top in every possible encounter that even Stormcloaks looked more palatable. It’s not really surprising that there was Altmer nationalism brewing while being part of the empire being run mainly by Cyrodiils and Nords, both nations being famous for hate and genocides against mer, and finally exploding after being totally abandoned in the Oblivion Crisis.
A bit of nuance would go a long way to avoid that. Especially that ES is one of the rare exceptions where fantasy setting is NOT to be taken on face value, there’s no omniscient narrator, and lore is purposefully ambigous.
Let’s hope the next one isn’t so lib.
Oh it will be more lib if anything. Of course, if it actually ever show itself since it’s now clear the first announcements were fake because Bethesda completely fucked up with Fallout 76 and needed anything to distract the fans. It’s incredibly weird for me, Morrowind-Oblivion-Skyrim created one of the biggest hype trains in games ever, and there is no sequel for 11 years and counting. I just don’t get why.
Maybe it’s like the sonic franchise or pokemon. They are holding onto sonic adventure 3 and mega evolutions until they need to rescue the franchise from utter ruin? (Wishful thinking by me)
Probably not the case, after the stunning success of Skyrim new game would rake them incredible cash and yet there is nothing for 11 years now and production would probably only really starts after the Starfield is released. I remember in 2019 the most sceptical people were saying that this is fake announcement and ES6 will show no sooner than 2025 - and they were probably too optimistic, not mentioning Covid which really disrupted game development globally (and they were called morons by starved ES fans).
You can be as well right, Bethesda was bought by Microsoft recenty and from what i read the company was in bad shape and were whipped up to shape, even work on Starfield started back then for good. Fallout 76 was giant blunder.
I think it is rather fault of the 2019 nadir in PC gaming, with the focus on multi shooters where every other game genre withered, it was especially bad time for crpg and strategy. Bethesda for example had no problem churning out new shooter every few months, because why not - CoD and such example confirmed that such games can bring as much money as more ambitious rpg games for a small fraction of development costs.
Fortunately things recovered somewhat since then, but many good franchises died then.
I agree the gaming industry somewhat homogenised into fps and competitive games too.
Would it be fair to say that these games are not only easily accessible with no requirement for story engagement (people just dip in and out of the multiplayer), gaming has became a lot more social and are easily profitable and microtransactionable so it works for the publishers which would explain why there was such an oversaturation of the genre?
Dragons dogma 2 annoucement was a pleasant surprise ngl!
I would say those games are much more popular because of the bigger and lower common denominator - not everyone can get the time to play RPG, or even like the genre etc.
I mean, look what bring most cash now - the mobile games ffs.
The oversaturation was the fault of overwhelming success of Fortnite - i guess it was the first PC game that broke to the mobile audience big time. So suddenly everyone wanted its own fortnite or at least something multiplayer. Mass Effect died for that :( It went so bad that in 2018/19 everyone was saying that the single player games are finished. Not even any genre like rpg or strategy, but all single player was dying. Of course as usual they were talking from their ass - one Fortnite was good and brought huge money, but who needs 20 of them? They never learned from the example of MMORPG - 18 years old WoW is still alive and good but no other game achieved even a fraction of its success.
I don’t think the Empire is portrayed in a positive light in Morrowind. At least that wasn’t my impression when I played it years ago.
There’s a lot more nuance in Morrowind to start. They were portrayed as good, bad, or neutral depending on who you engaged. You were allowed to form your own opinion on them, something Bethesda has always tried to cultivate even to the detriment of quality of writing down the road.
Keep in mind also that in the main story of Morrowind, it was the Emperor who sent you to fulfill the Nerevarine prophecies and you were ultimately working for the Blades. It’s equivalent to the role of Agent Ross in Black Panther, who fulfilled “white savior” a few times. You are a non-native foreigner in the game effectively working for the CIA. You can roleplay in your head a detachment from this after becoming the Nerevarine, but the game itself doesn’t give you the ability to, for instance, stage a playable and possibly canon insurrection to drive the invaders out of the Ashlander’s homeland. The best you get is killing all the Blades and Imperial agents for fun.
Sidenote: the Emperor even only pardoned you and sent you to Vvardenfell because his oracles and scholars told him that you might be the Nerevarine. It was all along a thing of “the West knows best.”
EDIT: Thinking deeper on the inability to stage an Ashlander insurrection, specifically two points:
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You get to participate in a civil war in Skyrim, but it is of course the racist ass ethnonationalist Stormcloaks. I can’t even look at Elder Scrolls memes anymore because that shit inspired endless fascism, alongside the way the ES community uses “n’wah” in place of the n-word (and mods in those spaces won’t do shit about it). The ES community is, at its core, racist, and Bethesda caters to that hardcore.
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Technically, the only reason the Empire is even in Morrowind is because the Tribunal was weakening and so they signed the Treaty of the Armistice with Tiber Septim to join the Empire. Great man bullshit handwaved an entire people’s destiny away, the Tribunal lying to the people and brutally criminalizing all dissent or investigation into the matter “because their literal faith in us is what keeps Morrowind safe so we must look powerful.” Vvardenfell was still restricted from Imperial trade and settlement until 13 years before the events of Morrowind, King Llethan having changed that, but he was himself a vassal to the Emperor. The decision was likely influenced by both parties to the Armistice yet again to the ire of the locals and natives, without giving them any information into the matter. The lore community even takes a perspective that the average character doesn’t know shit (re: “How much does the average person in Tamriel know about metaphysical lore concepts?”), namely “because that’s how it works in real life” (but they often lack any explanation or analysis of this beyond that and in fact mock it, as seen in the FAQ). It reinforces that it’s useless for them to be aware of the shit affecting their daily lives or have any agency at all.
The Ashlanders were ironically as hateful and regressive as the more traditionalist Nords, but they had a much better case for breaking ties violently.
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Morrowind is the odd one out in that regard.
I mean, Bethesda took a lot of cues from Tolkien-esque fantasy and amplified them because they started the Elder Scrolls in that era of “how do we change fantasy without changing fantasy at its core?,” like a reactionary attempt at "post-"fantasy. People mistake a depth of lore for quality too. I still love the games, but I have endless critiques of the setting, lore, writing, etc. Look at Warcraft. Started in the same era, similar amplified faults of reactionary "post-"fantasy.
I feel the same. I love Elder Scrolls, but I could rant about it all day. Same with Tolkien and Star Wars.
I don’t know if you do tabletops, but the Unofficial Elder Scrolls RPG is pretty fun. It’s rough around the edges and requires a patient and creative GM, but with some tweaks, it becomes very playable for folks who love the setting. The best part is, given the format, you can make the world play out in a better narrative and have it be more palatable.
Is there progressive post-fantasy?
I’m probably not the best person to ask, as I hone in a lot more on scifi. I imagine it’s possible, and maybe looking at some science fantasy you could lump that in, but personally I’m not sure.
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Haven’t heard of it, will look it up. Thanks!
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You’ve got to wonder what kind of dumbassery we will in their new scifi game whose name I forgot.
Of course usual “socialism in sci-fi” syndrome, which is always manifesting in one or more of the few ways: either portraying socialists as impotent utopian terrorist group, or totalitarian tyranny 100 gazillion dead no food no toothbrush only weapons, or liberal opportunist group of various kind or completely non existing (as if no one ever thought about that, pure TINA hooman natur).
Starfield.
