Bethesda learned its lesson from DLC pop-ups in its older RPGs: ‘We’ve gotten better at that’

Playing Bethesda’s open world RPGs when they were new, each time you installed a new DLC you’d get a convenient notification as soon as you booted up your last save telling you how to start the quest or where to buy your horse armor or whatever. Replaying them after the inevitable GOTY or Ultimate edition made for a more jarring experience. You step out of the tutorial sewer or shelter and you’re bombarded with pop-ups, one after another.

Istvan Pely, who has art credits on all of the Bethesda Fallout games as well as the Elder Scrolls from Morrowind to Skyrim, recently told GamesRadar that Fallout 3’s GOTY edition in particular taught them this wasn’t the best experience.

“One of the things we learned, more than a decade ago,” he said, “when you look at the Game of the Year Edition of Fallout 3—we would make these DLCs, and then we put out a Game of the Year Edition—and the Game of the Year Edition would start with all of these messages [telling you] the DLCs had unlocked. We’ve gotten better at that.”

Pely is now art director on Starfield, which will be getting its Terran Armada story DLC next month. Bethesda doesn’t want to repeat the mistake with Starfield’s expansions. “The beginning of Terran Armada is much more organically woven into the world,” Pely said. “You’ll stumble upon that content. So it’s entirely possible that you’ll start the game, you’ll learn about this, it tells you you probably shouldn’t do that now, but there’s nothing stopping you from trying.”

Starfield will get its Terran Armada DLC as well as the loading-screen-busting Free Lanes update on April 7. For the classic quest-notification-overload experience, look no further than Fallout New Vegas Ultimate, which is currently on sale for 75% off on Steam.