Last year, Microsoft slashed ZeniMax Online Studios to the bone, cutting an unreleased game that had been taking 7 years in development, and firing half the studio that was working on it. Although not fired, per se, the studio lead left right after. These moves apparently lit a fire under the butts of the people who remained. The Elder Scrolls Online announced and is releasing an overwhelming slate of new content and quality-of-life upgrades through the next couple of years, and the game’s population count is now starting to rebound. I think this trend will continue.
I’ve quit ESO. I’ve looked at several other games to replace it. Battlefield 6 was good and interesting, but the skill range is too high, and the sweats have run off all the casuals. I tried Warframe, which has a nice player count these days, but there’s no multiplayer end game to speak of. I tried Destiny 2, but even fans say it’s nigh impossible to get into as a new player, now that they deleted the first half of the content. Between the inscrutability of the systems, player counts being in the toilet, and Bungie in serious trouble after the release of Marathon, I’m giving this a miss pending better fortunes. I hate any game that’s all or nothing, which eliminates extraction shooters, like Arc Raiders, from consideration. Diablo IV and Path of Exile are too dark for my tastes. WoW is too cartoonish. Final Fantasy XIV is too furry. Guild Wars 2 looks interesting, but it’s PC only, and I just want to game on my console in my recliner. And that’s about it for MMO’s that I might be interested in.
So all of this continues to leave me with Fallout 76. Meanwhile, Bethesda Game Studios adds less content and more bugs with every release of Fallout 76. It’s in a bad place right now, and the player counts definitely reflect this. Bethesda fumbled the latest re-release of Fallout 4, which is still plagued with bugs, after many months. They fumbled Starfield’s original release, and now continue to fumble with Starfield for Playstation, which is also reportedly full of bugs. It seems they’re never going to get to The Elder Scrolls VI. I sure wish Microsoft would kick their rear ends in gear somehow. Given popular sentiment on the subreddit, I think the current trend with player counts in 76 will also continue unless something changes drastically. Their recent announcement about the next big patch clearly continues the decline.
Bethesda, please, make Fallout 76 great again. I find it almost inconceivable that I can’t find any games I want to play besides this one right now.