How different would The Elder Scrolls franchise be today if Michael Kirkbride remained in Bethesda after Morrowind?
How different would The Elder Scrolls franchise be today if Michael Kirkbride remained in Bethesda after Morrowind?
Gavin Anderson
Elijah Martin
so she has a foot fetish
Luis Cook
Probably not very different, he'd be bound by the same corporate restrictions as everyone else. The gaming landscape simply isn't the same as it was in Morrowind
Angel Smith
The games lore would be better and more consistent and maybe the worlds might be a little, only a little more alien and bizarre. But largely, I think they'd still be relatively similar to how they are now.
Especially gameplay and mechanics wise.
I think it'd be better just for those I mentioned, but ultimately I think Skyrim would still suck ass.
Kirkbride worked on Oblivion and that still got fucked over.
I think he'd still be restrained by Bethesda's corporate atmosphere.
Cameron Price
>Kirkbride worked on Oblivion and that still got fucked over.
His only contributions to that game were a few ingame lore books, one of which retconning why Cyrodiil went from a jungle to medieval britian.
Aaron Scott
The art design of the games would still be cool I guess. He barely wrote anything.
Kevin Rivera
Is that right? Well then I stand corrected. Maybe he'd have a bigger influence on the games lore and look then. I still believe outside of that, the games mechanics and gameplay would still be utter ass though.
Connor Ward
I don’t think Skyrim would be all that different. Maybe apocrphya would be crazier, and the rest of the nord pantheon would be a bit more present.
Zachary Richardson
>He barely wrote anything
Arguably books like the vivecs sermons had a huge impact on the overall lore, at least for its respective game. But yes, his talent and contributions as a concept artist is often hugely overlooked.
>tricking Todd into getting the most bizarre shit into the game
Glorious.
Tyler James
I absolutely love his style. Really brings out that Sword and Sorcery 80's vibe with the dark and occult themes.
Cameron Murphy
Todd is in charge and he is a mainstream simp.
Lincoln Peterson
Oblivion
>Jungled cyrodiil-as-csrcosa
>1000 faiths of Imperial City
>Clear Nibenay / Colovian divide aesthetically and culturally
>Peek at the various strange and unique cultures of the provinces of Tamriel in the capital
>More detailed information and lore on the history of Cyrodiil
>Weirder daedra; like bubble-head from the lessons
>More exploration of Dagon's worldview and motivations
>Slowly guide daedric cultist bastard idiot Martin into being good emperor material. Then he goes and sacrifices himself, bittersweet ending right there.
Skyrim
>Wasabi
>Dragons as bio-organic time-eating monstrosities with a mythopoeic perception filters
>No reductionist macguffiny "dragon-scroll", "blood-scroll" bullshit with the elder scrolls.
>Nords not giving a shit about Tiber Septim
>More focus on Nord religion, both ancient totems and current big 8.
>More weird and fantastical setting like Morrowind
>A story with a focus on cyclical history. "And then the awful fighting began again".
Ethan Reed
why did they cut his feet?
there's absolutely no nee for that
Jose Richardson
kirkbride is still highly respected by bethesda and they call him over whenever they need new ideas for games.
want to know why fallout 4 is all about robots? because kirkbride is a huge fan of Westworld and wanted it. that's literally it
Joseph Allen
Under his direction, the open worlds would probably look more interesting visually but I wouldn't fully credit him for what makes Morrowind so special compared to modern Bethesda games and that was the verisimilitude, which was the result of the collaboration of everyone working on the game in fleshing out every corner of the setting and properly integrating the worldbuilding and lore into the quests, gameplay, and story.
Bethesda settings post-Morrowint feel like they just exist in a vacuum, essentially theme parks that are designed to exclusively cater to the player and give them a bunch of random shit to do in the open world.
Jaxon Gutierrez
fun bit of trivia: kirkbride also wrote mankar camoran's final speech in the game. bethesda asked him to come up with an interesting motivation for the character so he wrote it in a consulting email. the whole TAMRIEL AE DAEDROTH thing was by him.
the speech has loads of misnomers because bethesda just inserted kirkbride's email into the script without editing it
Kayden Morgan
The Elder Scrolls has some of the worst lore in all of fantasy and Michael Kirkbride is a legitimate schizo and a pathetic drug fiend
Isaiah Roberts
The drug stuff was made up by redditors
Bentley Campbell
Yeah, he admitted that he prefers to sniff farts
Connor Martinez
How the fuck do I develop my own autistic aesthetic?
Chase Cox
You consume various media with similar aesthetics, combine something that has not been combined yet and train yourself in your skills.
Kayden Ward
Odd for the sake of odd would have been the dominant theme.
They would have focused almost exclusively on worldbuilding over narrative.
A template would be his time at Telltale. They were an incredibly well respected and growing studio when they hired MK. Five years later they closed their doors.
tldr
We wouldn't have to worry about Starfield if MK had stayed at Bethesda.
Julian Thompson
It would be cool instead of generic WoW fantasy
Jason Torres
Didn't he also write Heimskr's speech in Skyrim?
Nathan Morales
Go the MK route. Rip off the Hindus and call it your own.
Cooper Robinson
That is why he is named Heimskr.
Gavin Foster
Ah, what could have been.
Zachary Sanders
Disagree with a few of the Skyrim points. Talos ban is one of the good parts of Skyrim. In MK's own writeup Talos is the newest totem in Nord religion.
I also still question if anyone knows what bio-organic time machine even means, let alone how it applies to actual gameplay.