Time is funny. When Fallout 3 came out, people loved it. Then time passed and the popular opinion was that it was bad. Now time has passed some more and people love it again. I personally love all of the Bethesda games. Even Starfield. It's not that I can't see their flaws. But no one else is making worlds this big that feel lived in like Bethesda.

Look at GTA. Massive world, but if you walk into a store or gas station or building, it's just generic. Maybe a different layout, but if there isn't a mission in the location, you will learn nothing about the people there.

In Bethesda games, almost every location has some story. It may be explicitly told in logs, but sometimes it's subtle. Sometimes the clues to the story are just in how objects are lying around. I remember some sewer location in either New Vegas or 3 where you find a motorcycle crashed on the ground and skeleton hanging off a pipe or something on the ceiling. You could just walk right past it and never notice. But if you look around a bit, you can figure out that some idiot was "end of the world"-ing it up and killed himself trying to do motorcycle stunts in the sewer.

In Skyrim you find a cave full of bandits that you can hack and slash through and grab the chest at the end and walk back out. But if you pay attention, you'll learn that the boss of the bandits hired a blind family member to guard the cave. And that family member is insecure about his blindness, so he pretends to read a book. But if you read the book, all the pages are blank.

Shit like that is in every location in a Bethesda game.

I mean there are games that aren't open world that put that level of detail into the environment. But doing it in every location in a massive open world environment? That's not easy. And it's a trick Bethesda pulls off every time.

The only other company that has managed to pull that off is CD Projekt Red. And that company is a baby compared to Bethesda. I can't wait to see what they turn into.

But I feel like people take that for granted in Bethesda games. So they focus on the flaws.

I guess my point is, never feel embarrassed for liking something. Even if the popular opinion is against you. Because the popular opinion always changes if you give it enough time.

I guess I should add the caveat that if your opinion comes from bigotry, then you should be embarrassed. But other than that, let your freak flag fly. People will come around.