On the one hand this is sad, but if they're calling the work on ME4 "early" it was inevitable. They announced that back in 2020, and had a teaser trailer in 2023. They should have been done or nearly done by now. If they hadn't even progressed past "early" in 6 years, it was never happening.
EA only let them work at one game at a time as a studio, and after Veilguard the entire studio was restructured multiple times so they never really had the structure to fully ramp up production
There hasn't been a teaser trailer. The thing that was shown back in 2018 was them telling everyone that it will be coming after Starfield. It didn't even enter early development until like 4 years ago.
Even Bethseda staff are complaining about it, saying they applied for the job being told they'd work on Elder Scrolls then when they get the job they got shipped off to work on Starfield.
If we're being honest, the next Elder Scrolls game has next to no chance of living up to expectations. Bethesda has repeatedly shown that they do not have the talent or vision they once did.
If only gamers had even the slightest understanding of what goes on at game studios lol.
That's not how it works, that's vibes bullshit you've cooked up.
BioWare announced that they were doing very early preliminary work on ME5 in 2020, and then put out the trailer in 2023, as you say, but they only had enough people at that time to be working on one new game. Why? Because EA had made them cut their numbers after Anthem.
So they could only work in full production on one game. That was Dragon Age 4, which EA (EA, let's be clear, not BioWare), forced them to reboot TWICE in that period (one might have been slightly before, 2019 I think).
So there wasn't secret full production of ME5 going on. There was never any "should have been done". They're not CDPR with high hundreds to thousands of employees. They weren't even Larian in the last 5 years, staff numbers wise.
What really fucked them was that EA (again EA to be clear) forced them to fire most of their staff after Veilguard. But they weren't completely out - they were just back in the same position Archetype Entertainment were in 2023, say, with about 70-100 employees (Archetype has a lot more now, that's how it works - you staff up). So actually, if EA had put money into them, they absolutely could have staffed up again and put out a game in, say 4 years. But that does require money - you need 200+, probably closer to 400 staff to make a real AAA game in 4 years now. And EA had made them fire down to under 100.
Thanks, Captain Obvious. The reasons don't really matter, though. The point is that for a game to still be in "early development" after at least 6 years means it's basically dead in the water, regardless. Nothing you've said here goes against that. In fact, it just reinforces the point.
•
u/chrisdpratt 7h ago
On the one hand this is sad, but if they're calling the work on ME4 "early" it was inevitable. They announced that back in 2020, and had a teaser trailer in 2023. They should have been done or nearly done by now. If they hadn't even progressed past "early" in 6 years, it was never happening.