Ex developer at Bethesda quit his job after 14 years and made this heavy metal horror game as a solo dev with no publisher

The Axis Unseen free demo: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1807810/The_Axis_Unseen/

It took about 3.5 years, but now it's actually coming out in less than two weeks. I'm really excited to see what people think of it and it has been cool watching streamers react to the demo. Somehow my two story tall tree guy is really good at sneaking up on people. :D

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I feel like credentials such as used to work at Bethesda, aren't as good as they think they are... Or is it just me?
- You shouldn't dismiss someone's 14 year career, including a game of the year, because you don't like the studio he came from.
  
  Length of time isn't a credential to me
  
  It is to the real world, it's called work experience.
- I don't blame the devs for bad AAA games, with like 300 people working in one game, if it becomes shit it's management fault.
  
  Okay but I don't see how it's a net positive credential, how it even actually means anything?
  
  😞
  
  What specifically are you disagreeing with? Bad games are bad largely due to design and monetization reasons, both of which developers don't participate in deciding. But, they do witness all of the good decisions that get cut from the design. Buggy games are one thing you can partially attribute to developers, but saying Bethesda devs have a net negative credential without explaining is willfully obtuse and borderline troll behavior.
  
  Good developers CAN make good games but good games require more than being just good at development... And bad developers can produce fun buggy games
  
  Well, at least he is able and have experience to work well in open world sandboxes with fps mechanics. Something people tend to like. I didnt olqy starfield but y es new vegas, and if a game like this is bad is more because the level desing, progresión, npcs and such are bad done, and any of that things have something to do with a developer.
  
  Are there shitty restaurants with good chefs?
  
  Idk, you concider the food of a videogame the code or the story and lvl design?
  
  Sure.
- I understood it as "they were fed up with the henhouse and proved they could do better alone".
  
  Yeah but it's like, ok so you're a programmer. Neat. Working at a company for a set period of time just doesn't tell me anything. I guess that's just me
- if they were a lead game designer or writer I would agree. but I think this guy did environmental design, and Bethesda has had pretty cool environments in their games. though not all of them are very believable (in feeling lived-in), they sure do provide some spectacle, and memorability. in fact many of their games have been mostly carried by environments.
- It's just you. That a company makes terrible decisions tells not that much about a dev. If a dev says he worked on multiple projects does tell something about the dev regardless of the company. Don't forget that Bethesda sold their soul to MS and now has a lot more "steering" at the top, devs don't participate in that.
  Edit: a word
- Everything but starfield seemed like a plus to me
  
  Well he mostly worked on starfield of he was recently employed there
- Depends on their tenure. If they're old school Bethesda, nah that's just you. The people who built the older TES games had much more skill than the people churning out schlock or the 473rd rererelease of Skyrim. The newer people, yeah that's not a feather in their cap really. Starfield is meh at best, and doesn't hold a candle to stuff like Morrowind.
- Especially if we are going back only 14 years. So what did they work on, skyrim remasters or Fallout 4 remasters?
  
  Starfield. Active development started 9 years ago.
  
  Meaning the last 6 years of his career there were on starfield, which he wasn't a manager of, if he quit 3 years ago.
  This feels like a standard toxic gaming community thread where dismissing someone's achievements is for some reason fair game.
  Dude held a job at a huge publisher for 14 years, then quit and developed his own thing.
  Good on him!
  
  You're missing that he quit during the development of that crappy game, which gives him extra points for judgement.
  
  To address your point of toxicity, I didn't get the impression. In fact it's the first thing that popped into my mind as well.
  Bethesdas reputation is just that tarnished.
  
  Yeah I dunno. Journalist who worked at cnn 20 years quits to make own newspaper wouldn't do it for me either
  
  Flip the conversation. What WOULD show a level of experience that equated to quality to you?
  
  What specifically he worked on, really.
  He could've been the UI/UX programmer, he couldn't been the enemy AI programmer or etc etc. I know that programmers wear many hats but I can say I am a 3D modeling software developer for 12 years, but the fact that I worked mostly on moving data between languages and API creation means that I wouldn't have the correct set of skills necessarily to create good 3D software
  
  Take the focus off this exact scenario and Bethesda Dev. Throughout the thread, there has been several other scenarios presented but none have hit home with you. What I'm asking is, what previous qualifications for a new role in an exact industry would be something you'd accept as proof of validity?
  This isn't meant to be confrontational, I'm legitimately curious. I see these sentiments a lot on the Internet and it leads to a flurry of downvotes without anyone asking the person receiving them what would be their desired outcome / goal.
  So to frame it in that regards, would someone being a lead engine developer give more credence to a solo project? Being a project manager? Having a varied CV that showed growth across a company providing a base understanding of several different disciplines without a targeted focus on one? Or something as simple as "they worked on the questlines that I personally liked"?
  Genuinely interested in what would make YOU happy or impressed by an announcement like this.
  
  Again, specifically saying what he worked on was actually connected with the game he was making now.
  Did he work on game balance and feel? did he work on environment? Did he work on enemy AI?
  It'd show me what to expect in the new game.
  Would be like saying chef worked at restaurant for 15 years. Do you want to eat his food?
  Well, you can probably expect decent food but... I'm not a big seafood fan so if you brought perfectly seared scallops and a seafood risotto I probably wouldn't like the result.
  If he cooked at a dive bar for 15 years and made hand ground meatballs with homemade pasta sauce and started his own wing place I'd question it.
  So headline being -
  "Skyrim lead developer - making solo game"
  And the ambiguous title makes me think "Starfield questline and custom spaceship developer makes solo game"
  
  Interesting that when asked to bring a self founded viewpoint you return to the core conceit despite presenting counter arguments to the contrary in all prior responses.
  Once again, what would prove to YOU that someone had a history or resume to be valid in a statement about prior experience in regards to new ventures?
  
  Journalism on CNN is alright, it's the political commentors that have been bought.
  
  Nah I'm just ragging on the fact that Bethesda has released only like 2 new games in a decade and a half. And then updates of the old goodies like every year.
  Its not about the developers it's about how shitty Bethesda is.
  
  Mashing x to doubt...
  That timeline was trotted out to make it sound pre no man's sky during marketing. Inside sources had it's real development time as way shorter, hence it's so terrible even for a Bethesda game
  
  That... Still doesn't feel like a positive thing to mention.

113 comments