One of the most popular and enduring RPGs to have been released has been 2011’s The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim. While there could be many reasons for the title’s enduring popularity, including external factors like support from the community through extensive modding, the game’s own features can’t be discounted.
According to former Bethesda developer Nate Purkeypile, this was because the developers got more time and freedom to add things to the game. Speaking to PCGamer at GDC 2025, Purkeypile, who worked on Skyrim as a world artist, revealed that Bethesda used to not be strict about sticking to development schedules.
“We had quite a bit of freedom to do stuff,” he said about how development used to happen at Bethesda. “The one that people know about was Blackreach … That was not on schedule at all. Like we just kind of did that on the side and put it in.”
Even something like the addition of werewolves in Skyrim were, according to Purkeypile, originally a side-project. He said that, “Originally, it was just dudes with dog heads, and someone took it upon themselves to make it awesome.”
“A lot of the great stuff within Skyrim came from having that freedom to do what you want, as opposed to a game with this whole ‘checklist design’ and ‘design by committee.’”
Since the growth of Bethesda’s development teams, however, the company has gotten much more strict about its schedules, especially with more recent titles like Starfield. “You would basically get in trouble for doing that,” said Purkeypile, contrasting the company’s older style of development with how it operates these days, “because everything does have a cost.”
“If everyone is doing that within 500 people, it’s a mess,” he said. “But with, you know, 100 people? It’s much more manageable, and where a lot of the interesting things come from.”
Ultimately, Purkeypile admits that he enjoyed working at the studio a lot more when it was working on titles like Fallout 3 and Skyrim. His enjoyment of working at Bethesda started waning as the company hired more developers to work on larger-scale projects.
“While I enjoyed working at Bethesda a lot when we were about 65 to 110 people on Fallout 3 and Skyrim, I enjoyed it a lot less as it grew and grew,” he said.
Since its release, Bethesda’s most recent RPG, Starfield, has gotten a mixed critical response. Despite this, however, the title has proven to be quite possibly. Back in November 2024, Bethesda announced that it had been played by more than 15 million players since its release.
The last major addition to Starfield was through expansion Shattered Space. Released back in October 2024, you can check out more details about the DLC in our review. The company still has a lot more planned for the game, however.
Earlier this month, Bethesda Game Studios revealed on social media platform X that it has content planned for Starfield in 2025. While it didn’t reveal any concrete details, the company said that it will be talking about its plans for the RPG in 2025 “when the time is right.”
