When playing Bethesda games, you’ll wander through a Fallout wasteland or Elder Scrolls dungeon and be overwhelmed by the unending, pointless abundance of stuff. There are overflowing bins, precariously stacked shelves, and a bunch of sandwiches. This is all deliberate and part of an ethos Bethesda is pushing.
From Fallout‘s potato-filled pantries to Starfield‘s overflowing bookshelves, Bethesda’s worlds are bursting with seemingly useless trinkets. Xbox Wire sat down with John Valenti, Lead Set Dressing Artist, and Robert Wisnewski, Lead Props Artist, at Bethesda Game Studios to ask why the company is obsessed with clutter. But as Valenti and Wisnewski explain, it’s all a part of the magic.
“We try and learn about the people that inhabit these cities, settlements, and outposts, including factions. What are they like? How do people live and what items would they need to survive? What types of jobs would people have out in the settled systems? What items would they need to use to complete their tasks?”
John Valenti
Bethesda likes to go really far with how they place random items to create immersion. Clutter grounds the fantastical in the familiar. It makes these sprawling worlds feel real, like places with histories and quirks beyond the main quest. And it gives players agency. Too much clutter can be overwhelming, but Bethesda tends to do this really well.
According to Wisnewski, too many items can make inventory management difficult, so they also had to consider that. The developers had to balance densely cluttered environments with giving players too much stuff to carry during development. It can go wrong quickly, but as a player, I’ve never thought it was weird that there was so much stuff.
So this is why Bethesda’s worlds tend to be far more cluttered and filled with items than those from other developers. To be honest, I like it. It’s better than the games where I have to pick up every little thing.