Despite all the conditions seemingly lining up for Starfield to become another landmark RPG from Bethesda Game Studios, the game ultimately failed to reach the legendary status of titles like Skyrim, Oblivion, or Morrowind. According to former Bethesda loremaster and Skyrim co-lead designer Kurt Kuhlmann, the core issue was that the studio had grown too large for its creative leaders—especially Todd Howard—to remain deeply hands-on.
Speaking to PC Gamer, Kuhlmann explained that during the development of Skyrim, leads were directly involved in day-to-day creative work. “I was working directly on Skyrim, and I was a lead,” he said. “That was how all the leads worked then. I was directly collaborating with quest designers and other developers.” He noted that Skyrim marked a turning point, after which Bethesda’s structure became increasingly bureaucratic—one of the main reasons he decided to leave the company in 2023.
While Todd Howard remained the creative director on Starfield, Kuhlmann pointed out that leadership roles had expanded significantly. Leads now included studio heads and producers spread across multiple studios, making it much harder for a single creative vision to guide the project consistently.
Kuhlmann believes that Starfield’s biggest weakness is that it never fully came together as a cohesive experience. With so many creatives contributing their own ideas, the game struggled to establish a unified identity. In his view, the project suffered from a classic case of “too many cooks in the kitchen.”
Although he emphasized that Howard is a strong project lead, Kuhlmann explained that Bethesda’s rapid growth often pulled him away from direct involvement in the game itself. “When Todd would get pulled away from the game,” Kuhlmann said, “that would really hurt the game.”
As major, publicly traded studios continue to expand, this kind of issue may become increasingly common—especially for long-running franchises built on strong creative leadership. With The Elder Scrolls 6 still years away, there is hope that Bethesda has learned from Starfield’s mixed reception. However, given the growing responsibilities shouldered by key figures like Howard, it remains unclear how the studio can fully return to the focused development style that defined its most beloved RPGs.
For now, fans will have to wait—possibly until the next decade—to see whether Bethesda can truly course-correct.
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