Bethesda shocked the gaming community when it announced that it would be holding its first-ever E3 press conference at the 2015 show. Then, the publisher revealed that Fallout 4 was not only happening, but would make its gameplay debut during its press conference. Then Doom was re-revealed, and nearly 20 minutes of footage was shown on-stage. Even the smaller announcements, like the mobile game Fallout Shelter, were met with near-universal praise. Suffice to say, Bethesda had one of the strongest showings of any publisher at any E3 ever.
That being said, one of the reasons the conference worked so well is that Bethesda had taken its time with the games it had revealed. While there are few who would agree that Doom's 10-year development cycle should become the norm, it's clear that Bethesda isn't just rushing things out for the sake of releasing a game. And that doesn't exactly lend itself to a yearly formula, especially when it comes to hosting a press conference.
Sadly, it's starting to sound like Bethesda's amazing E3 2015 conference earlier this month won't be making a return anytime soon: during an interview with The Telegraph, Bethesda Softworks' Pete Hines, VP of PR and marketing, said he isn't sure about making a return to the stage next year.
"I don't know if we'll do one next year ... I don't know if we'll do one again," Hines said. "This year felt like the right time to do this kind of thing."
At first glance, it's sad news: Bethesda's E3 press conference was outstanding. But would having one every year really be doing the publisher's games justice? Games like Fallout 4 can take years to create even a simple playable build, and trying to shove something like that out the door would just result in a lot of angry fans.
"It's rare to have franchises like the ones we have and to have people joking about 'when is Skyrim 2 coming out?' The reason they say that is because, generally speaking, that's what you'd be getting with another publisher in charge. They'd be spitting out a Skyrim 2 the year after or two years later. That's just not how we view it. We're not the sort of publisher that focuses on 'what's our 25 titles for 2015'."
To be honest, it's a refreshing approach: so many games are released with game-breaking bugs nowadays, maybe it'd be best if publishers gave their teams more time to actually finish the games. After all, most people prefer to play the games they buy, rather than sit around and wait for a patch that might not even fix their issues.
While it's sad to hear that Bethesda probably won't have another E3 showcase next year, fans can at least get their hands on one of the studios' biggest games in just a few months: Fallout 4 is set for release on Nov. 10.
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