For the record I would like more games like this one. I am the target audience for this game, I enjoy it, and if more devs made games like it I would be happy.
That’s interesting. My personal impression was that, since the success of GTA3 and Skyrim, basically every AAA title has to be some kind of open world sandbox game with as many features as possible. Personally, I really dislike that; I want a tight narrative and strong core gameplay, and I couldn’t care less for stuff like crafting and base building. (I’m also a bit saddened by the way Bethesda took Fallout 4 and Fallout 76 in. I want to play RPGs, not looter shooters.)
Some studios, like Larian and Obsidian, are still making these games, so I’m happy with that. I really enjoyed Outer Worlds, even though people were criticizing it for being too confined (or maybe especially because it was confined). I’m hoping to get around to BG3 and DOS2 soon. But it feels like we’ve had a drought for more than a decade.
So anyway, I found it surprising to read that you feel there aren’t enough Bethesda-like games, because it feels to me like everyone is copying them. Of course, they are masters of their craft, so maybe the problem is that other studios just aren’t any good at it :P