“We were finally at a state in the project where we could play through the whole [game]. And it became very clear that we were missing the large final location that was going to tie the story together and have a satisfying action-filled payoff,” Shen said. “I was both implementing the main quest and leading the quest design team, so I had absolutely no time. The entire quest design team was already overbooked.”
Part of the issue, Shen said, was the sheer size of the team working on Starfield. Skyrim’s development team was around 100 people, which made collaboration between different departments easier. That team size grew to about 150 for Fallout 4, then over 350 for Fallout 76, and 500+ for Starfield. That’s not just Bethesda Game Studios but outside developers like Machine Games, Nobody Studios, Arkane, Snowed In, and The Forge Interactive.
