Starfield lead quest designer says players getting “fatigued” by super long games, trumpets bitesize titles like Mouthwashing

Former Bethesda designer Will Shen, who has worked on several high-profile games such as Star field and Skyrim, said he believes players become “tired” of games that take hours upon hours to complete.

During an interview with Kiwi Talkz (by using GameSpot), Shen was asked about the game’s length and admitted that many people still spend hours on Skyrim. But do players want to spend as much time on the new games that hit the market? Well, Shen feels like we’ve kind of given up on that idea when it comes to new releases.

“We’re getting to a point where people are getting tired, or a large portion, a growing portion of the audience is getting tired of spending 30-plus, 100-plus hours playing a game,” Shen explained. “Because they already have it. They already have games they’ll keep coming back to, and adding another one to that list is a tall order. It’s always a difficult task.”

Shen said we’re now seeing a “renaissance” in shorter games that are easier to digest (at least in terms of playtime). He pointed to Mouthwash, a game our Catherine called “brilliantly refreshing and unflinching horror” in Four star review from Eurogamer – as an example of how shorter games can produce winning results.

“[Mouthwashing is] “At three hours at most, it’s a very short experience,” Shen said, “but part of the benefit of this is that the community’s involvement in the mouthwash story is only possible because everyone who is a fan has actually gone through it all the way to the end.” .

Shen said he understands there were other factors that contributed to Mouthwashing’s success, but he firmly believes the game’s short length was one of the key reasons why it became such a hit. “You can discuss in the fan community a game that is much shorter, because its brevity allows everyone to be fully immersed in the product,” Shen continued, adding that games that exceed 10 hours in length are often left unfinished by many players.

“I’d say 75 percent of your players are only playing for the first five to ten hours, so that’s a huge fragmentation of your overall fan community.”

What do you think about the length of the game? Do you think shorter is better, or are you still looking for that game that will become the game you play?

Long story short, our Jim was pretty keen on the mouthwash too, so in fact he named it one of his 2024 games in the Eurogamer video team’s review, which you can watch above.

Meanwhile, while Shen is no longer with Bethesda and while working on Starfield, the studio itself continues to work. Last year, Todd Howard has confirmed at least one more DLC for the space epic next 2024 Shattered Space expansion. As for what it could be, fans believe the “Starborn” trademark was filed by Bethesda’s parent company Zenimax back in July. may indicate a second Starfield expansion.