Why Bethesda Games Will Probably Always Have Unwanted Loading Screens

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion remaster has been everything fans of the original could have hoped for. Old mods work surprisingly well and muhc of the fondly remembered quirkiness of the game is still there. Despite all of the improvements in the remaster though, there’s still plenty of loading screens, which are a staple of Bethesda games and an aspect a former developer doesn’t see going away any time soon.

Bruce Nesmith, a senior game designer who worked at the company for nearly 20 years, provided some insight in an interview with VideoGamer. Nesmith said that the notorious loading screens have been “a necessary bane since time immemorial.” The reason for this is that the games Bethesda makes “are so detailed and so graphics intensive… you just can’t have both present at the same time.”


The developers have attempted to eliminate loading screens from its games in a variety of ways, because Bethesda is aware that players would prefer a more seamless experience. However, it hasn’t been able to make it work, and that with “all the fancy tricks for streaming and loading and all that, you end up with hitching. So you’re actually better off stopping the game briefly, doing a loading screen and then continuing on.”

Seeing as how massive open world games filled to the brim with details are what Bethesda is best at, loading screens will likely continue to be used. It’s “one of those necessary evils,” otherwise the company would need to create something that sacrifices in one way or another to attain that seamless experience. At that point it wouldn’t really be the Bethesda game players have come to know and love -- it would be something else entirely.

It's always interesting getting an inside look at how certain games are made, especially when learning about the tradeoffs and decisions developers are forced to make. Hopefully newer players will view the loading screens with less scorn after learning more about why they are necessary.